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FIRST 



ANNUAL REPORT 



OF THE 



1VEW-HA]TIPSHIR£ 



VNTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY 



PRESENTED AT 



A MEETING OF THE SOCIETY, HELD AT CONCORD, 



June 4:» 1835. 



CONCORD: 

ELBRIDGE G. CHASE, PBINT£B. 

1835. 



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Is 



*U..^p^4 -i^/' /'■ 



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OFFICERS 



President. 

REV. DAVID ROOT, of Dover. 

Vice-Presidents. 

Gen. D. HOIT, Sandwich, N. P. ROGERS, Esq., Plymouth. 

Rev. C. CUTLER, Windham, Mr. A. CAMPBELL, Acworth, 
Rev. J. M. WHITON, Antrim, Rev. E. E. CUMMINGS, Concord. 

Executive Committee. 

Rev. N. BOUTON, Concord, Rev. D. STOWELL, Goffstown, 

Rev. J. M. PUTNAM, Dunbarton, Mr. B. DAMON, Concord, 

A. CADY, Esq., Concord, Rev. J. CURTIS, Pittsfield, 

Rev. G. STQRRS, Concord, Rev. A. T. FOSS, Hopkmton. 

Corresponding Secretary. 

JOHN FARMER, Esq., Concord. 

Recording Secretary. 

Rev. EDMUND WORTH, Concord. 

Treasurer. 

GEORGE KENT, Esq., Concord. 



* 



FIRST ANNUAL MEETING-. 



Concord, Thursday, June 4th, 1835. 

The Annual Meeting of the New-Hampshire Anti-Slavery-Society com- 
menced at 8 o'clock at the Town Hall. Rev. Jonathan Curtis of Pitts- 
field, President of the Society, took the chair and after a few appropriate 
remarks, addressed the Throne of Grace in Prayer. 

On motion it was 

Voted, That a Committee be appointed to examine the credentials of 
Delegates and present the Constitutwn. for signatures and take the n3^°^ 
of Honorary Members. Rev. Messrs. Perkins, Putnam and Stowell were 
appointed said Committee. 

Voted, That Rev. Messrs. Cummings, Root, and Gen. Hoit be a Com- 
mittee to report a list of Officers for the ensuing year. 

Mr. Jos. Horace Kimball was chosen Assistant Secretary. 

On motion. 

Voted, That an invitation be extended to Gentlemen, Members of Anti- 
Slavery Societies from abroad to take a seat in this meeting. 
The following are the names of Delegates as reported by the Committee. 

Rev. E. E. Cummings, 
Rev. Edmund Worth, 
Dea. Joseph French, 
Doct. T. Chadbourne, 
Maj. Time. Chandler, 
Elbridge G. Chase, • 
David D. Fisk, 
Hazen Walker. 



AMHERST. CONCORD 

Rev. Samuel Prescott.Rev. George Storrs, 

BARNSTEAD. 

J. C. Prescott. 

BOSCAWEN. 

Abraham Robertson. 

CAMPTON. 

Davis Baker, Esq., 
Benjamin Noyes. 



CANAAN. 

Thomas Paul, 
W. P. Currier, 
William Scales. 

CHICHESTER. 

Rev. Wm. S. Lock, 
Rev. R. A. Putnam, 



George Kent, Esq., 

Rev. M. G. Thomas, 

Charles Hoag, 

Amos Wood, 

Joseph H. Kimball, 

Thos. W. Thorndike, 

Dea. John B. Chandler, derry. 

Albe Cady, Esq., Rev. Philo Brownson. 

Albert G. Chadwick, dover. 

Elbridge G. Eastman, Rev. David Root, 

Nathaniel Abbot, Rev. Jared Perkins, 

Benjamin Damon, Hosea Sawyer, Esq., 

John Farmer, Esq., Asa Freeman, Esq., 

Rev. Nath. Bouton, Stephen Willey, 



William H. Alden, James Davidson, newmarket. 

Oliver Wyatt, Gideon Flanders, Rev. Wm. H. Hatch. 

H. A. Foot. D. A. Bunten, fittsfield. 

DUNBARTON. Luttier Sargent, Rev. Jonathan Curtis, 

Rev. John M. Putnam, John Aiken. AVinthrop Fifield 

L/oct. Isaac Stearns, j. j , M'Pr.:ii;o Jeremiah Blake. 
Dea. David Alexander,^'- rk 3 ^ ' Portsmouth 

John Mills, Esq., '^oct. O. W. Austm. r^v. Da vfd Mark's. 
Jonathan Ireland, Esq., henniker. Plymouth. 

Dea. D. H. Parker, Rev. Geo. Putnam, Jona. Cummings Esq., 

Capt. Benj. Whipple, Rev. E. T. Winter, Rev. S. Chamberlain, 

John Bunten, Isaac Harriman, Doct. Samuel Rogers, 

William Whipple. Joshua Colby, Esq., Nath. P. Rogers, Esq., 

DURHAM. Daniel Hussey, Joseph R. Carr, Esq., 

J. A. Richardson, Esq., John Page. Capt. F. W. Robie, 

,,..„. FP^^NKLiN. „n..^T.T^n., Hon. Moore Russell. 

Willinm P ^tnncy HOPKINTON. 

w imam r. fe tone, ,, . ^ Salisbury. 

Doct. Jesse Merrill. ^^^^- ^- ^ ' ^o^^' Rev. Samuel Everett. 

GOFFSTOWN. LOUDON. SANDWICH. 

Rev. David Stowell, Wm. Chamberlain, Hon. Daniel Hoit, 
Nathaniel Kimball, Doct. James B. Abbott,Gen. J. D. Quimby. 
JCri"!.'^^^ Aiken, Esq., P. Robinson, Esq., sanbornton. 

John Gilchrist, jr., Samuel Chamberlain, Rev. C. R. Harding. 
James Flanders, Tenney K. Gage, windham. 

Dea. John Stevens, Joseph Morrison. Jeremiah Morrison. 

Delegates from abroad. 

Rev. Samuel J. May, Delegate from the Mass. A. S. Society. 

Rev. A. A. Phelps, Delegate from the American A. S. Society. 

H. B. Stanton, Delegate from the Ohio A. S. Society. 

Rev. C. P. Grosvenor, Del. from Salem, Ms., and vicinity, A. S. S. 

C. T. ToRREY, Theological Seminary, Andover, Mass. 

Rev. James T. Woodbury, Acton, Mass. 

Letters were received from several gentlemen, apologizing for their 
absence. 

The First Annual R-eport was then read, in the absence of the Corres- 
ponding Secretary, by N. P. Rogers, Esq. 

Rev. Mr. Root moved that the Rjpport be accepted and pubUshed under 
the direction of the Executive Committee. 

The motion was seconded by Rev. Mr. May, who made some spirited 
and able remarks. 

Leave was unanimously granted to Rev. Mr. Sullivan, who was not a 
member of the meeting, to express his views in opposition to the sentiments 
advanced. A discussion was then carried on by Messrs. Sullivan, May, 
and Phelps. 

Voted, To accept and print the Report. 

On motion of Rev. Mr.pHELPs, 



Toted, That this meeting adjourn to meet at 3 o'clock, P. M. at Rev. 
Mr. Bouton's meeting house. 

Afternoon. — Met according to adjournment. 

Rev. James T. Woodbury, of Acton, Ms. offered the following resolution. 

Resolved, That the doctrine of immediate and unconditional emancipai ion 
us the only righteous and efficient principle of action in the cause of abolition. 

Mr. Woodbury supported the Resolution in a very eloquent and ingenious 
manner. Remarks were made by Messrs. May, Stanton and Grosvenor 
and the Resolution was adopted. 

Voted, To adjourn to meet at the Town Hall at half past seven, evening. 
■Prayer by Rev. Mr. May. 

Evening. — Society met according to adjournment. 

Prayer by Rev. Mr. Grosvenor. 

Rev. Mr. Cummings, as Chairman of the Committee appointed to nom- 
inate Officers of the Society, presented his report, which was accepted. 

Rev. Mr. Grosvenor offered the following resolution. 

Resolved, That the recent arrest of three citizens of Massachusetts, be- 
longing to the crew of the Schooner Butler, of Fall River, Mass., and their 
•committal to prison at \yilmington, N. C, upon the charge of secreting on 
board a negro boy, claimed as the property of Capt. S. Potter of that place, 
with the intention of bringing him off, is an act of alarming character and 
ought to excite the most serious inquiry among the people of the Free 
States. 

After some able remarks, the resolution was adopted unanimously. 

A subscription was then taken up amounting to $526. 

•On motion. 

Voted, That a prayer meeting be held the next morning at half past five. 

Voted, To adjourn to meet at half past 8 at the Town Hall. 

Friday Morning, June 5. 

Met according to adjournment. The meeting was opened by prayer by 
Rev. Mr. Storks. On motion. 

The proceedings of the previous day were then read. 

Rev. Mr. May offered the following resolution. 

Resolved, That it is the duty of all, who would efficiently aid the speedy 
emancipation of our enslaved brethren, to give preference in all cases to 
the products of free labor. 

The resolution was seconded by Asa Freeman, Esq., and after a long 
and interesting discussion, in which Messrs. Freeman, Hoit, Storrs, Clem- 
ent (a colonizationist,) Grosvenor, and Phelps took part, was passed unan- 
imously. 

Rev. Mr. Phelps presented the following resolution. 

Resolved, That this Society regards a strict and practical adherance to 
the maxims "Jiat jusiitia mat ccelum,^^ " and duty is ours and consequences are 
'God's," as the only true morality— the only morality that accords with the 
1* 



dictates of right reason or the teachings of the bible — the only morality that 
will stand the test of the judgment day, and secure, here or hereafter, the 
approbation and blessing of Almighty God ; and believe that such morality 
so far from being " a reckless disregard " of consequences, is, in the high- 
est sense, a solemn regard for consequences, inasmuch as it is simply and 
only a regard for consequences on a large scale — that of all time, all place, 
and all being as measured by Omniscience — in opposition to a regard for 
consequences on the small scale of man's short-sighted, limited and erring 
vision ; and hence it is, that while this Society holds as sacred the doctrine 
"To Casar the thi?igs that are Ccesar^s,^^ it holds equally sacred the doctrine 
^'To God the things that are God's,^' and does therefore declare, as their 
opinion, that all laws which contravene the law of God are not morally 
binding, but are, "before God, utterly null and void," as a rule of duty ; 
and this Society, therefore, holds it as God's truth, that the slaveholder 
is sacredly bound. laviA or no law to the contrary, immediately to emanci- 
pate his slaves, and is, therefore, guilty, every moment he refuses to do so, 
of obeying man rather than God. 

A very animated debate ensued in which Messrs. Phelps, Storrs, May 
and R. R. Gurley took part. It continued until nearly two o'clock, when. 

On motion, it was 

Voted, To adjourn to meet at the same place at 3 o'clock, P. M. 

Afternoon. — Met according to adjournment. 

Prayer by Mr. H. B. Stanton. 

The Resolution offered by Mr. Phelps was laid on the table in order to 
take up other business. 

N. P. Rogers, Esq., offered the following resolution which was seconded 
by Mr. Grosvenor, and passed unanimously. 

Resolved, That this Society earnestly recommend to all its, auxiliaries, 
to circulate, as soon as practicable, in their respective vicinities, petitions 
for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, 
and forward the same to Congress, at the opening of the next session of 
that body. 

Rev. Mr. Grosvenor moved the following Resolution, which was sec- 
onded by Gen. Hoit and passed unanimously. 

Resolved, That this Society earnestly requests its auxiliaries and friends 
throughout the State to hold meetings on or about the 4th of July for the 
delivery of addresses and the collection of funds in aid of the cause of 
Immediate Emancipation. 

Rev. Mr. Phelps then called up the Resolution presented by him in the 
morning, and it was supported by Rev. Mr. May in some eloquent remarks. 
He was followed by Rev. Messrs. Storrs and Gurley. The discussion 
continued till half past six, when the resolution was unanimously adopted. 

Rev. Mr. Foss offered the following resolution which passed unanimously. 

Resolved, That this meeting invite the attention of the ministers and 
churches of this State to the day of fasting and prayer for the abolition of 
Slavery, about to be observed in some other parts of New-England, on the- 
25th instant. 

Adjourned to 8 o'clock. 



Evening.— Met according to adjournment. Prayer by the President. 

Voted, That the minutes of this meeting be published with the Report. 

Rev. Mr. Gurley rose and spoke about twenty minutes endeavoring to 
prove that Christianity sanctioned Slavery. He was followed by Mr. 
Stanton in an able review of the colonization scheme and the principles 
of Immediate Emancipation. Mr. Phelps followed with his usual ability, 
and finally gave way to Mr. Gurley, who made a long speech in defence 
of his views and in condemnation of the doctrine of Anti-Slavery. 

N. P. Rogers, Esq. offered the following resolution, which was seconded 
by Rev. Mr. Grosvenor, and passed. 

Resolved, That the ' Herald of Freedom ' and the ' Liberator ' deserve the 
efficient patronage of the friends of Emancipation. 

Rev. Mr. Stowell offered the following resolution which was seconded 
and passed unanimously. 

Resolved, That this Society, considering the success that has attended the 
efforts of the friends of Immediate Emancipation, feel under obligations to 
express their gratitude in devout thanksgiving to God for his favor and 
blessing. 

Voted, To dissolve. 



REPORT 



African Slavery was introduced into Europe, about half a cen- 
tury before the discovery of America by Columbus. The Portuguese 
are said to have been the first who engaged in this traffic. The other 
nations of Europe gradually followed the example, and a system 
was established by which the chiefs of the African tribes doomed 
their prisoners of war and their convicts to everlasting servitude, 
and exchanged them for the luxuries of European commerce. 

In 1501, Slavery was first introduced into America by Spanish 
slaveholders, who emigrated with their negroes. In 1503, it was 
authorized by a royal edict of Spain. King Ferdinand himself sent 
from Seville fifty slaves to labor in the mines. In 1511, the direct 
traffic in slaves between Africa and Hispaniola was enjoined by a 
royal ordinance. As the West India Islands advanced in prosperity, 
the demand for slaves increased. Speculators and adventurers from 
every part of Europe carried to the coast of Africa the alluring arti- 
cles of their respective manufactures. Thus tempted on all sides, 
the African tyrants resolved to use every practicable method of ob- 
taining slaves. War was excited for the purpose of taking prisoners. 
The innocent were charged with crimes which they never committed. 
The helpless were seized by violence, and the inhabitants of their 
own villages were sometimes carried off in a body to supply the 
means of the inhuman barter. 

The first Englishman who engaged in the Slave Trade was a 
m£^n called Sir John Hawkins. In 1563, he transported a large 
cargo of Africans to Hispaniola.* In 1567, another expedition was 
prepared, and Queen Elizabeth, although she had expressed some 
compunctions in the traffic, protected and shared in the profits. 
Hawkins, in one of his expeditions, set fire to an African city, and 
out of 8000 inhabitants succeeded in seizing only 250. In a third 
piratical voyage, this inhuman monster and all his gang perished. 

The first enslaved Africans were brought to this country by the 
Dutch in 1620. They were twenty in number, and were landed 
and disposed of at Jamestown, the first settlement in Virginia. 
They were afterwards introduced into the Southern colonies in great 
numbers, in some of which, laws were passed to encourage their 
importation. 

* Holmes's Amer. Annals, i. 84. Hakluyt, i. 521, 522. 



10 

It would be gratifying indeed, were we able to show that our be- 
loved New England, in its earliest days, had never tolerated the 
holding of human beings in slavery ; but we fear there is too much 
evidence to prove that the practice was sanctioned by our puritan 
fathers. It is some small satisfaction to know, that unlike those 
who carried on the slave trade, they made a wide distinction be- 
tween those who were stolen or seized by violence by the Slavers, 
and those who were taken in lawful war, or were reduced to ser- 
vitude for their crimes by a judicial sentence. An express law was 
made prohibiting the buying and selling of the former, while the 
latter were to have the same privileges as were allowed by the laws 
of Moses. We shall give in this Report a remarkable instance of 
justice in the execution of this law, when two negroes, who had 
been fraudulently brought from the coast of Guinea to this country, 
were, by the special interposition of the general court of Massachu- 
setts, taken from their masters and sent home to their native land. 

The time when negro slaves were first introduced into New 
England has been generally referred to the year 1645 ; but we shall 
show it to have been a number of years earlier, if not coeval with 
the settlement of Boston by Gov. Winthrop and others, in 1630. 
The first of whom any notice is given in any early printed work 
relating to New England, were owned by Samuel Maverick, who 
came to this country in 1628, or 1629, and settled on Noddle's 
Island, in Boston harbor. Here, he was found by the emigrants 
who came over with Gov. Winthrop. Johnson, who was one of 
the company, describes him in his History of New England, printed 
in 1654, as " a man very ready to entertain strangers;" and Josse- 
lyn, in his Account of two voyages to New England, after visiting 
him on the 10 July, 1638, represents him as "the only hospitable 
man in all the country, giving entertainment to all comers, gratis." 
In a subsequent visit, the same year, he gives the following account, 
which shows that slavery existed in New England as early as that 
period. 

" The 2d of October, [1638] about 9 o'clock in the morning, Mr. 
Maverick's negro woman came to my chamber window, and in her 
own country language and tune, sang very loud and shrill : going 
out to her, she used a great deal of respect towards me, and willing- 
ly would have expressed her grief in English ; but I apprehended it 
by her countenance and deportment, whereupon I repaired to my 
host, to learn of him the cause, and resolved to entreat him in her 
behalf, for that I understood before that she had been a Queen in 
her own country, and observed a very humble and dutiful garb used 
towards her by another negro, who was her maid. Mr. Maverick 
was desirous of having a breed of negroes, and therefore seeing she 
would not yield by persuasions to company with a negro young man 
he had in his house, he commanded him, will'd she, nill'd she, to 
go to bed to her, which was no sooner done than she kicked him 
out again : this she took in high disdain beyond her slavery, and this 
was the cause of her grief."* 

* Josselyn's Voyages to N. E. 28. 



11 

Such is the degrading and melancholy picture of slavery in the 
early annals of New England. Thus early were attempts made to 
violate the chastity of female slaves. Well might the captive 
Queen bewail her lot in the touching strains of her own native 
country. But Maverick, unlike many slave-holders of the present 
day, did not seduce his female slaves himself. He was no friend to 
amalgamation. He wished to preserve his negroes free from any 
admixture of the blood of the whites. A different policy prevails 
now, and it is a well established fact that " American citizens, who 
boast loudly of their own freedom and of that of their 'posterity^ sell 
their own children into slavery ; and others traffic in the bodies of 
their half brothers."* 

In July, 1637, Capt. William Peirce, of the brig Desire, belonging 
to Salem, was commissioned to transport fifteen boys and two 
women of the captive Pequot Indians, a formidable tribe, which had 
been nearly exterminated in war a few months before, to Bermuda, 
and sell them as slaves. He returned on the 26 February, 1638, 
with "a cargo of cotton, tobacco, salt and Negroes.'^''-\ The Indian 
slaves had probably been exchanged for African slaves. It is pos- 
sible that some belonging to this cargo were purchased by Maverick ; 
but as he had built a fort on Noddle's Island, and erected a house 
and other buildings, and cultivated land before Gov. Winthrop and 
company arrived, it is not improbable that he brought slaves with 
him when he first came over; and if so, the era of Negro Slavery 
in New England must be fixed at about 1629. 

In 1639, the next year after Peirce brought the negroes to this 
country, we find an African in possession of Nathaniel Eaton, the 
first master of Harvard College, who it appears was, in some respects, 
better qualified for an overseer of a slave plantation, than the head of 
a learned institution. t 

In 1644, James Smith, a shipmaster, and a member of the church 
in Boston, and Thomas Keyser, his mate, sailed for Guinea, where, 
on their arrival, they met with one or more slave ships, engaged 
in the same traffic with themselves. In concert with the Londoners, 
who pretended they had formerly been injured by the natives, they 
invited some of the negroes on board one of the ships on the Sabbath, 
and having got them in their hands kept them as prisoners. They 
then landed men, and a piece of ordnance, called a murderer,<^ with 
which they assaulted one of the towns, and killed many of the people, 
but "the country coming down," the assailants were forced to retire, 
without any booty several of their men being wounded with the 
negroes' arrows, and one of their number killed.il 

With those who had been decoyed on board the ship. Smith sailed 
for the Madeiras, where he purchased wine, and then sailed for Bar- 
badoes to dispose of it. From Barbadoes, where Smith from some 
cause or other, was left, the ship under the charge of Keyser returned 

* Rev. C. P. Grosvenor's Address at Salem, 1834, p. 34. f Winthrop's 
Hist. N. E. i. 234, 254. |See Winthrop's Hist. N. E. i 309, 310. 
■ ^ A murderer it doubtless proved, as about 100 negroes were killed. 

II Winthrop's Hist. N. E. i. 243. 



12 

to Boston, bringing two of the negroes, who had been decoyed from 
the coast of Guinea in the manner just related. One of these was 
brought into New Hampshire, being purchased by Francis Williams, 
of Portsmouth, who had been governor of one of the plantations. — 
Smith soon returned to Boston, and on the petition of Richard Sal- 
tonstall, Esquire, one of the assistants of Massachusetts, whose oath 
and conscience would not allow him to overlook such a flagrant vio- 
lation of human rights, both Smith and Keyser, "for their injurious 
dealings with the negroes in Guinea," were ordered "to be laid hold 
on and committed to give answer in convenient time." Governor 
Winthrop in speaking of this transaction, says, the magistrates or- 
dered the two negroes to be set at liberty and to be sent home ; " but 
for the slaughter committed they were in great doubt what to do in 
it, seeing it was in another country, and the Londoners pretended a 
just revenge. So they called the elders and desired their advice.* 
what punishment was inflicted on Smith and Keyser, if any, we 
know not. 

As to the negro who had been brought into New Hampshire, the 
general court wrote to Mr. AVilliams in May, 1645, informing him 
that the negroes brought here by Smith, " were fraudulently and 
injuriously" taken, and requiring him forthwith to send the one in 
his possession to Boston, that he might be sent home, and stating 
that the court had resolved to send him back without delay. t 

We are the more particular in giving the circumstances of the 
origin of New England Slavery, as we believe they have never been 
fully and correctly represented by modern historians. We give them 
too to show, how abhorrent to the feelings of our puritan fathers was 
the crime of man-stealing; to show that though it was sanctioned 
by the usages, if not by the laws of their native country, and of the 
Christian nations of Europe, it was by them condemned and rep- 
robated. We much regret that they did not condemn slavery m toto; 
that they did not discover that to hold men in servitude, even when 
made prisoners in lawful war, was totally inconsistent with the prin- 
ciples of Christianity. This discovery was reserved to a more en- 
lightened and benevolent age. Our fathers were by no means free 
from errors, but in their estimate of human rights they were in ad- 
vance of the age in which they lived. 

In November, 1646, the general court of Massachusetts passed a 
law against man-stealing, making it a capital crime. They also or- 
dered that the two Africans forcibly brought into the Colony should 
be sent home at the public expense. t The other Colonies soon pas- 
sed a similar law to that of Massachusetts. The Connecticut code, 
prepared in 1650, has the following section. "Tf any man stealeth 
a man or mankinde he shall bee put to death." The New Haven code, 
printed in London 1656, contains a similar article, " If any person 
steale a man or mankind, that person shall surely be put to death." 
The Plymouth laws probably made man-stealing a capital offence. 

♦Winthrop's Hist. N. E. i. 245. 

+Mass. Colony Records. Belknap's Hist. N. H. (Edit, of 1831.) i 40, 41 

IFelt's Annals of Salem. 



13 

Of the southern colonies, we have seen none of the early statutes 
relating to the suhject, and we can recollect only one solitary instance 
in that quarter of a man stolen from his native country being sent 
back, and he was redeemed from slavery. This was Job Ben Solo- 
mon, ^ Pholey, son of the high priest of Bundo, in the interior parts 
of Africa. Travelling across the country with his herds of cattle, in 
the year 1731, he was seized and sold into slavery. He was brought 
to America and purchased by a Maryland planter. About a year af- 
ter, he found means to convey a letter to England written by himself, 
in Arabic. The letter fell into the hands of the benevolent Ogle- 
thorpe. It was translated at Oxford, and such was the esteem which 
it procured for the writer, that he was redeemed and sent to England. 
Here he tarried upwards of a year, exhibiting great mildness of tem- 
per and strength of intellect, and received much notice and liberal 
presents from many of the nobility and the royal family. Having at 
length an opportunity to return to his native country, he embracexl 
it with great eagerness; but alas! his father was no more; his wife 
had married another ; his whole country had been ravaged by war, 
though before abounding with herds of cattle, he had not even a cow 
left. The feeling man was deeply penetrated at his father's death 
and the misfortunes of his country, but his wile he forgave, saying, 
"she could not help thinking I was dead, for I was gone to a land 
whence no Pholey ever returned."* 

Numerous insulated facts respecting slavery in New England from 
the close of the seventeenth century down to the American revolution 
could be given. We have room for only a few of the most prominent, 
and those of a public nature. Of the introduction of slavery into 
the southern colonies we would remark, that in some of them it was 
encouraged by legislative acts, and especially in Maryland, where as 
early as 1671, an act was passed for "encouraging the importation 
of negroes and slaves."! In South Carolina, after it had been allow- 
ed for seventy years, the legislature, to their lasting disgrace, passed 
an act, " That whoever shall teach, or cause any slave or slaves to 
be taught to write, or shall use and employ any slave as a scribe in 
any manner of writing w^iatsoevcr, shall, for every such offence, 
forfeit the sum of £100."t 

In 1700, Chief-justice Sewall of Massachusetts, a most excellent 
and humane man, having for some time deeply felt for the condition 
of the enslaved negroes, published a tract entitled " The Selling of 
Joseph," in which he advocated their rights.^ As this was the first 
work published in New England, pleading in behalf of the Africans, 
we had hoped to obtain a copy of it to make some extracts from it; but it 
is feared that it may have become extinct. We have however been fa- 
voured through the kindness of a beloved and honored descendant of 
Judge Sewall with the following extract of a letter written by the au- 
thor and relating to his work. Itisdatedonthel9June,1700. He says, 
"Having been long and much dissatisfied with the trade of fetching Ne- 
groes from Guinea, at last I had a strong inclination to write something 

♦Francis Moore. fHolmes's Annals, i. 358. Chalmers' Annals, 6. i. 362, 
JHolraes's Annals, ii. 16. <^Allen's Araer. Biog. Diet. Art. Sewall. 
2 



14 

about it ; but it wore off. At last reading Bayne Ephes. about servants, 
who mentions Blackamores, I began to be uneasy that I had so long 
neglected doing any thing. When I was thus thinking, in came Bro, 
Belknap to shew me a Petition he intended to present the General 
Court for the freeing a Negro and his wife, who were unjustly held 
in bondage. And there is a motion by a Boston Committee to get 
a law that all importers of Negroes shall pay 40s. per head to discour- 
age the bringing of them. And Mr. C. Mather resolves to publish a 
sheet to exhort masters to labor their conversion— which makes me 
hope that I was called of God to write this apology for them." 

That Judge Sewall held the true doctrine respecting human rights, 
and was an Abolitionist in the present sense of the term, may appear 
by the following extracts from his Letter Book, and sent to Judge 
Addingtoh Davenport. "The poorest Boys and Girls within this Pro- 
vince, such as are of the lowest condition, whether they be English, 
or Indians, or Ethiopians; they have the same right to relegion and 
life, that the richest heirs have. And they who go about to deprive 
them of their right, attempt the bombarding of HEAVEN ; and the 
shells they throw will fall down on their own heads." These senti- 
ments were sent to Judge Davenport just before his going to sit on 
the trial of Samuel Smith, of Sandwich, for killing his negro. 

Judge Sewall, like the Abolitionists of the present day, was attack- 
ed for advancing such sentiments. John Saffiti^a judge of the same 
court with Sewall, and a slaveholder, and one who had attempted to 
bring into bondage again one of his slaves who had been set free, 
printed an answer to " The Selling of Joseph," to which Judge Sew- 
all alludes in a letter to Rev. John Higginson of Salem, then in his 
90th year, and one of the most venerated ministers in New England. 
The letter is dated iSth April, 1706. " Amidst the frowns and hard 
words I have met with for this undertaking, it is no small refresh- 
ment to me, that I have the learned, reverend and aged Mr. Higgin- 
son for my abettor. By the interposition of this breast-work, I hope 
to carry on and manage this enterprise with safety and success." In 
a letter to Henry Newman at London, afterwards agent for the pro- 
vince of New Hampshire, which accompanied a copy of* " The Sel- 
ling of Joseph," he desires him to do something " towards taking 
away this wicked practice of Slavery," and expressing the opinion 
that there would " be no progress in gospellizing until slavery was 
abolished.* 

Time has shown how well founded was the opinion of Judge Sew- 
all. One complete century and more than the fifth of another have 
passed away since his letter to Mr. Newman was written, and what 
has been done towards " gospellizing" the natives of Africa and their 
descendants .? How many millions of Africans during that time have 
gone down to perdition in the chains of slavery forged by those who 
called themselves Christians ! When will the church awake to her 
true interest? when will those who minister at her altars cease to find 
" Scripture Arguments " for upholding and continuing the greatest 
curse that ever afflicted the world .^f 

*Sewairs Ms. Letter. fSee Counter Appeal of Fres. Fisk and others. 



15 

The effect of Judge Sewall's efforts in Boston, where he resided, will 
appear from the fact that the next year after he published the tract 
alluded to, the inhabitants of that town desired their representatives 
in the general court " to promote the encouraging the bringing of 
white servants, and to put a period to negroes being slaves."* There 
was doubtless some check to the importation of negroes to New Eng- 
land, about this time, as may be inferred from their slow increase in 
Massachusetts; but no effectual restraints were imposed upon slavery. 

In 1703, an act was passed the general court of Massachusetts,! 
premising that " As Mulatto and Negro slaves, who had been freed, 
were often oMiged to be maintained by the towns where they lived, 
they shojild not be considered as manumitted, unless their masters 
gave security to pay whatever charges might accrue respecting them." 

In 1705, the same court by an act or resolve forbid the intermar- 
riage of the whites with colored persons. t 

In 1709, the Boston News-Letter, published by John Campbell, 
postmaster in Boston, contained advertisements of negro men, boys 
and girls to be sold, 'Inquire at the Post Office.' It was common 
for negroes to be thus advertised down to the time of the revolu- 
tion. 

In 1728, the duty on negroes in Massachusetts was £4. a head. 
As this duty was often evaded, the masters of vessels, bringing 
them, were required to enter them on oath to the town clerk where 
they arrived, and to pay the duty. If any negro died within a year 
after he was imported, the duty on him was to be returned. || 

In 1731, the town of Portsmouth, in this State, voted, "thai if 
any free Negro or Indian come into the town, those that entertain 
them shall support them, if they come to want; and every person 
that shall marry a Negro or Indian, so coming in, to any Negro or 
Indian of theirs, the master or mistress, consenting to such a mar- 
riage, shall support said persons, so as to free the town from any 
charge. "IF 

In 1737, Benjamin Lay, the benevolent Quaker of Pennsylvania, 
wrote a treatise, entitled, *' All Slave keepers, that keep the in- 
nocent in bondage. Apostates." It was printed by Dr. Franklin, 
who told the author, when the manuscript was brought to him, that 
it was deficient in arrangement. " It is no matter," said Mr. Lay, 
" print any part thou pleasest, first." Mr. Lay had resided in Bar- 
badoes, where he openly testified against the conduct of the owners 
of slaves. On his arrival at Philadelphia, he found many Quakers 
who kept slaves. He remonstrated against the practice both in 
public and private. Calling on a friend in that city, he was asked 
to sit down to breakfast. He first inquired, " Dost thou keep slaves 
in thy house ?" On being answered in the affirmative, he said, 
" Then I will not partake with thee in the fruits of thy unrighteous- 
ness." After an ineffectual attempt to convince a farmer and his 

*Boston Town Records. fFelt's Annals, 338, 339. ^Felt's Annals 
of Salem, 340. ^ Bo wen's Picture of Boston, 265. 1| Felt's Annals, 387. 
If Burrough's Address at the opening of the New Alms House in Ports- 
mouth, 24. 



16 

wife in Chester county, of the iniquity of keeping slaves, he seized 
their only child, a little girl of three years of age, under the pretence 
of carrying her away ; and when the cries of the child and his sin- 
gular expedient alarmed them, he said, " You see and feel now a 
little of the distress which you occasion by the unhuman practice 
of slave keeping." His bold, determined, and uniform reprehension 
of the practice of slavery, in defiance of public opinion, does him 
the highest honor.* 

He was followed in his benevolent labors by Anthony Benezet, 
another Friend, belonging to Philadelphia, who, in 1767, published 
" A Caution to Great Britain and her Colonies, in a short repre- 
sentation of the calamitous state of the enslaved Negroes in the 
British Dominions." This seems to have produced some effect in 
the Colonies, and especially in Pennsylvania, which, in 1780, passed 
an act abolishing slavery. Six years after the publication of Bene- 
zet's work, we find the town of Salem, Massachusetts, voting that 
their Representatives in the General Court use their utmost en- 
deavors to prevent the importation of negro slaves. 

In 1775, the number of slaves in the United States had increased 
to 500,000. Virginia alone contained more than one-fifth of the 
whole number. Maryland, as early as 1755, contained 42,764 
negroes, and 3592 mulattoes. New England, when the war com- 
menced, numbered about 17,000 colored persons. The white popu- 
lation at the same time exceeded 600,000. 

At the commencement of our existence as a nation, the Congress 
of the United States did a noble act — an act worthy of the great 
principles for which they were contending. They declared in the 
face of the whole world — " We hold these truths to be self-evident — 
that ALL men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that amongst these are 
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 

In this general and unqualified Declaration of Congress on the 
4th of July, 1776, all the people of the thirteen original States, 
without distinction of color, were proclaimed free, by the delegates 
in Congress, and this act of theirs was acknowledged and sanction- 
ed by each of the States in their individual capacity. 

In the same year this Declaration was made, Pvev. Samuel Hop- 
kins, of Newport, Rhode Island, published a " Dialogue concerning 
the Slavery of the Africans, shewing it to be the duty and interest 
of the American States to- emancipate all the American Slaves." 
This work was dedicated to the Continental Congress, who had 
previously advised the American Colonies to drop the Slave Trade 
entirely, and not to buy another slave that should be imported from 
Africa. The first edition was printed at Norwich. A second edition 
was issued from the press at New York, under the patronage of the 
New York Manumission Society. This work even now may be 
regarded as one of the most thorough, able, clear and conclusive 
discussions of the subject which has appeared. 

The principles of the Declaration soon began to be adoptied by 

* Allen's Bio^. Diet. Art. Lay. 



17 

several of the States, and here we will mention .the time when 
abolition of slavery took place in the several New England States. 
In Vermont, slavery was abolished by their first Constitution, adopted 
in Convention, 2 July, 1777, at Windsor. After the revolution, some 
attempts were made to transport out of the State negroes and mulat- 
toes, and sell them in open violation of the laws ; but the General 
Assembly, in 1786, passed an act to prevent such sale and trans- 
portation, prefaced by the following preamble : — " Whereas by the 
Constitution of this State, all the subjects of this commonwealth, 
of whatever color, are equally entitled to the inestimable blessings 
of freedom, unless they have forfeited the same by the commission 
of some crime ; and the idea of slavery is expressly and totally ex- 
ploded from our free government." The act provided that if any 
person convicted of making sale of any subject of that State, or of 
conveying or attempting to convey any subject out of the State to 
hold or sell such person as a slave, he should forfeit and pay to the 
persons injured the sum of £100, and cost of suit, to be recovered 
by action of debt, complaint or information.* In Massachusetts, 
as in Vermont, slavery v/as abolished by the Constitution, which 
was adopted in 1780, the first article of which declares. All men 
ARE BORN FREE AND EQUAL. It had been generally and practically 
abolished years before the adoption of the Constitution. In New 
Hampshire, the Constitution was adopted in 1783. The first article 
of the Bill of Rights declares " All men are born equally free and 
independent," and the second, that " All men have certain natural, 
essential and inherent rights ; among which are, the enjoying and 
defending life and liberty ; acquiring and protecting property ; and in 
a word, of seeking and obtaining happiness." The colored people 
never abounded in this State. One hundred years since, there were 
but about 250. In 1775, they were reckoned at 659; and according 
to the first census, they amounted to but 788. In Rhode Island, 
slavery was abolished by act of the legislature in 1784, and its 
abolition in Connecticut was effected in a similar manner. 

After the close of the war of the revolution, public opinion was 
again turned towards the unhappy condition of the negro. A few 
of the patriots who perilled their liv^es, their fortunes and their sacred 
honors in defence of the unalienable rights of man, possessed too 
much of the expansive spirit of true philanthropy to constrain the 
blessings of freedom Avithin the limit of any particular class. They 
were too honest and sincere, too regardful of the precepts of univer- 
sal love, calmly to permit the land for the liberties of which they had 
poured out their blood like water, to be polluted by the footsteps of 
the slave. These were consistent patriots, they were true lovers of 
human kind. They Avere willing and anxions to impart to others the 
rights and privileges which they themselves enjoyed. They had pro- 
claimed abroad, solemnly and unitedly, the doctrine of the natural 
equality of man, and they were not so soon to shrink from its partial 
application. They endeavored to carry it out, to embrace in it all 
men, whatsoever might be their form or complexion. They consid- 

* Slade's Vermont State Papers. 
*2 



18 

ered the declaration penned by Thomas Jefferson, not merely a 
'rhetorical flourish,'^ but self-evident, incontrovertible truth. When 
the storm of war, which they rode upon and directed, had passed 
away ; when they once more had ceased to fight for their own homes, 
and in defence of the sanctity of their own firesides : they began, as 
the kind feelings of their nature again took the place of the stern, 
desperate spirit which had long animated them, to sympathize with 
the oppressed, degraded negro in their midst. As they had endured 
wrongs, they naturally felt an interest in the fate of their brethren, 
who were enduring a bondage even more sore and galling than the 
one they had just thrown off. 

The Friends, in the person of Anthony Benezet, were the first to 
engage actively in the work of redeeming the colored population of 
of our country from the ruin and degradation into which they had 
heen crushed by untoward circumstances. He had, as we have al- 
ready mentioned, published a work upon the the horrible condition 
of the slaves and the cruelties of the slave-trade. In 1781, he resign- 

*It is often asserted that the South deems slavery unjust, and is desirous 
of getting rid of it. In the extracts which we give below, from two leading 
religious papers, we have no doubtful intimation of their real sentiments. 
They '^ do not contemplate it with hatred and horror." They deny the in- 
justice of slavery, not only under present circumstances, but in the abstract. 
They are not anxious to be clear of it. Then to hear them call the noblest doc- 
trine ever uttered by man,"a rhetorical flourish!" To hear them boldly attack- 
ing the very foundation of our government ! They complain that aboUtion- 
ists have attacked the constitution : why they are madly taking away the 
living principles on which that constitution is founded. But to the extracts. 

The Editor of the Charleston Southern Baptist, repels with indignation 
the idea that any Southerners would favor the northern views. He says, ''We 
trust and we believe, that our nothern brethren are deceived in this matter.. 
We rather think they have taken the sentiments of northerners, who are only 
transiently among us, for the sentiments of the southern people. But we 
would say to them, brethren, be not deceived. In this matter we do not 
agree with you. 'Tis possible, yea, probable, here and there might be 
found an isolated case of an individual who repudiates the system of slave- 
ry, but we are satisfied there is by no means a prevalent feeling of this 
character. We do not contemplate slavery "with hatred and horror," and our 
southern people do '-deny in the abstract the injustice of slavery." We think 
that we can prove that slavery is not necessarily founded on injustice." 

The Southern Christian Herald, a Presbyterian paper, published at Co- 
lumbia, S. C. goes more into the detail. The editor is quite surprised that 
"our northern brethren seem to be under the impression that slavery is ad- 
mitted by the religious community at the south to be a sin, but one which it is 
not yet prudent to oppose." And he proceeds to "expose some of the wild 
and extravagant notions which many seem to entertain respecting liberty. 

" The substance of these are contained in that 'rhetorical flourish, of 
Mr. JeflTerson, in which he says, " we hold these truths to be self-evident . 
that all men are created equal : that they are endowed by their Creator 
with certain unalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness." Upon this proposition, false as it is, rests the 
wild theories of liberty, held by so many. And we are told that men are 
not only born equal, but free. The very reverse of this is true." 



19 

€d the charge of the free school which he had long and acceptably 
superintended, and devoted himself entirely to the instruction of the 
blacks. In 1783, he addressed a letter to the Queen of England, 
pleading eloquently but ineffectually, for her interference in abolish-' 
ing the slave-trade. Nor were the inconsistencies of our govern- 
ment in permitting slavery, suffered to pass without remonstrances 
and expostulations. In 1783, a pamphlet was published in London, 
entitled a "Serious Address to the Rulers of America, on the inconsis- 
tency of their Conduct respecting Slavery." This was a bitter, but 
deserved reproach ; and the more bitter as coming from those against 
whom they rebelled as tyrants. 

In 1782, Mr. Jefferson published his notes on Virginia, in which 
we find the following sentiments : " The whole commerce between 
master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous pas- 
sions, the most unremitting despotism on one part, and degrading 
submission on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate 
it. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of 
wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives 
loose to the worst of passions, and thus Jrursed, educated, and exer- 
cised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it Ayith odious peculiari- 
ties. With what execration should the statesman be loaded, who 
permitting one half the citizens to trample on the rights of the other, 
transforms those into despots, and these into enemies ; destroys the 
morals of the one part, and the amor patricB of the other. ***^*And can 
the liberties of a nation be thought secure, when we have removed 
the only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these 
liberties are the gifts of God? That they are not to be violated but 
with his Avrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect 
that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that consid- 
ering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution in the 
wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: 
that it may become probable by supernatural interference. The Al- 
mighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a con- 
test."* 

* The same sentiments Jefferson retained in his old age ; as will be seen 
by the following extract of a letter, dated Monticello, August 25, 1814. 

Dear Sir, — Your favor of July 31, was duly received and read with 
pleasure. The sentiments breathed through the whole do honor to both the 
head and heart, of the writer. Mine on the subject of the slavery of ne- 
groes have long since been in the possession of the public, and time has only 
served to give them stronger root. Yet the hour of emancipation is advan- 
cing, in the march of time. It will come ; and whether brought on by the. 
generous energy of our own minds, or by the bloody process of St.Domin- 
go, excited and conducted by the power of our present enemy, if once sta- 
tioned permanently within our country, and offering an asylum and arra.s 
to the oppressed, is a leaf of our history not yet turned over. 

I am sensible of the partialities with which you have looked towards me 
as the person who should undertake this salutary but arduous work. But 
this, my jjear sir, is like bidding old Priam to buckle on the armor of Hec- 
tor, " trementibus ceve humeris et inutile ferrdmeingi." — No, I have overlived 



20 

In the same year that Mr. Jefferson's work appeared, Virginia 
passed a Manumission Law, by which " any person, by his or her 
last will and testament, or by any other instrument in writing," with 
(Certain forms specified in the act, ^' might emancipate and set free 
his or her slaves, or any of them, who shall thereupon be entirely 
and fully discharged from any contract during servitude, and enjoy- 
as full freedom as if they had been particularly named and freed by 
this act." There was a provision in the act that all slaves not of 
sound mind and body, those above the age of 45, or being males 
under the age of 21, or females under the age of 18, should not 
come under the benefits of this law. From the passage of this act 
to the year 1791, Judge Tucker supposes that upwards of 10,000 
slaves were emancipated. Now, the spirit of freedom has so far 
become degenerate, that no slave can be liberated, without instantly 
leaving the State, under a severe penalty. 

In 1785, the first abolition society ever formed in the United 
States, was organized in the city of New York. Hon. John Jay, 
afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court, was chosen its President. 
The object of the association, as stated in one of its publications, 
was to " promote th^ manumission of slaves, and to protect such 
of them as have been or may be liberated." In 1787, a similar 
society was organized in Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin was its 
first President, and Benjamin Rush its Secretary.* A society was 
also formed in Maryland two years subsequent to this, and its ten- 
dency was highly favorable both to the slave and the master. There 
were also societies in Virginia, Delaware, Connecticut, and we have 
been informed in other States. Addresses, too, on slavery were 
delivered in different parts of the country, containing sentiments, 
which, if uttered now, would be, deemed rash, Jacobinical and in- 
cendiary. In the library of Harvard College, may be found a work, 
entitled, " A Serious Expostulation with the Members of the House 
of Representatives of the United States concerning Slavery." This 
was printed in 1793. But our attention is particularly drawn to a 
Sermon delivered by Jonathan Edwards, D. D., of New Haven, in 
1791. This is a most masterly production. It anticipates and fully 
answers the objections which are thrown in the way of abolitionists 
of the present day. Its language is strong and nervous, and the 
train of reasoning logical and triumphant. The sentiments which 
he utters are characteristic of his grasping mind, and are honorable 
to his warm and benevolent heart. But correct as they are, they 
are now repudiated by men who honor and reverence the name of 
Edwards, and are denounced bitterly as fanatical, visionary, and 
disorganizing. But tcmpora mutantur, and with the change of times 
there has also been a woful change of principles and feelings. In 

the generation with which mutual labors and perils begat mutual confi- 
dence and influence. This enterprise is for the young ; for those who can 
follow it up, and bear it through to its consummation. It shall have my 
prayers, and these are the only weapons of an old man. 

* Thomas F. Buxton of England, in a letter dated 10 April, 18S5, says 
he is in possession of the original document, signed Benjamin Franklin. 



21 

order to show the manner in which he takes up the subject, and his 
method of treating it, we propose to make a few extracts. 

Modern abolitionists contend that slave holding is equally heinous 
with slave trading ; that in fact, every slave-holder is a man-stealer. 
For this they have been hunted by men calling themselves Chris- 
tians. They have been proscribed as madmen, as idle dreamers. 
Lei us see what Jonathan Edwards said. On page 24, we find the 
following : 

"What will be said against the slave trade, will generally be 
equally applicable to slavery itself, and if conclusive against the 
former, will be equally conclusive against the latter." 

" No man has a better right to retain his negro in slavery, than 
he has to take him from his native African shore." p. 24. 

" I presume it will not be denied that to commit theft or robbery 
every day of a man's life, is as great a sin as to commit fornication 
in one instance. But to steal a man, to rob him of his liberty, is a 
greater sin than to steal his property, or to take it by violence. And 
to hold a man in a state of slavery, who has a right to his liberty, 
is to be every day guilty of robbing him of his liberty, or of MAN- 
STEALING. The consequence is inevitable, that other things be- 
ing the same, that to hold a negro slave, unless he has forfeited his 
liberty, is a greater sin in the sight of God, than concubinage or for- 
nication." 

Now if the law which pronounces the slave-trade piracy be just, 
ought it not to denounce the same punishment against every man 
who holds a human being in bondage ? 

Hear what he says about slavery being the cause of vice. 

" Slavery tends to lewdness, not only as it produces indolence, but 
as it affords abundant opportunity for that wickedness, without either 
the difficulty or the danger of an attack on the virtue of a woman 
of chastity, or the danger of a connexion with one of ill fame." p. 11. 

For saying the same thing. Garrison, and those who think with 
him, have been accused of misrepresentation and slander. Numer- 
ous other passages might be quoted, but these are sufficient. 

As evidence of the feeling manifested by a few individuals in 
New Hampshire, we shall here quote at some length from a Sermon 
written by Moses Fiske, A. M., then Tutor at Dartmouth College, 
and afterwards a Judge in Tennessee. The title is an expressive 
one. ' 

"Tyrannical Liberty-men. A Discourse on Negro Slavery in 

the United States. Composed at on the late Federal Thanks- 

giving Day;' [19 Feb. 1795.] 

On the title page we find the following motto : " And I beheld the 
tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter, and on 
the side of the oppressors there was power, but they had no coni; 
forter." [Ecclesiastes iv. 1.] 

One of the topics recommended on this occasion, was the capture 
of several American citizens by the Algerines. Great commotion 
had been excited throughout the United States by such a bold and 
heinous outrage, and contributions were taken up for the purpose 



22 

of redeeming the unfortunate captives. Mr. Fike seized the oppor- 
tunity to administer a sharp rebuke to his own countrymen for their 
inconsistency. He speaks pointedly and powerfully. "We refer to 
his remarks, particularly at this time, to shew that the doctrines 
of the abolitionists are not new doctrines, but that they are such as 
were held years ago by some of the ablest and best men in the land. 
The language is not tame and cold, but warm with the eloquence 
of the heart. He commences his subject in the following energetic 
manner. 

" Prepare your ears to hear a most extraordinary anathema pro- 
nounced against that infatuated people (the Algerines) by one of our 
first po6ts and eminent statesmen. 

'' Great maledictions of eternal wrath, 
Which, like Heaven's vialed vengeance, singe and scath, 
Transfix with scorpion stings their callous heart. 
Make bloodshot eyeballs from their sockets start ; 
For balm pour brimstone in their wounded soul, 
Then ope perdition and ingulph the whole." 

"In the name of honor, why this raving and execration .? 0, the 
Algerines have captured and enslaved five or six score of Americans, 
and keep them in abject servitude and distress ! For this they are 
condemned to death and perdition ; and 1 know not but Heaven 
suggested the verdict. 

" But if this thing must be done in the green tree, what shall be 
done in the dry ? In these United States, not five or six score, but 
five or six hundred thousand persons are enslaved ; not captured on 
the high seas, where no one goes unapprised of the danger ; but 
dragged defenceless from their native fields ; and frequently treated, 
as might easily be made to appear, in a manner barbarous as our 
people are treated at Algiers." 

From the following extract it will be seen that the doctrine of 
gradualism was not unknown in the writer's day. It has operated 
precisely as he averred it would. Emancipation was ' begun mod- 
erately,' has 'proceeded leisurely,' and if suffered to proceed in the 
same manner, will undoubtedly ' end — never.' The objectors at that 
time were just as fearful of going too fast, as the objectors of the 
present day ; and experience has placed before us the practical result 
of ^heir prudent, gradual measures. Since 1795, the number of the 
slaves has increased from 750,000, to about 2,500,000 ! 

" It is just," says our author in a strain of bitter irony, " it is just, 
no doubt, that the negroes should have remained free, but they are 
slaves, and therefore let them continue so. Let them, however, 
have this consolation, that we will leave off our injustice gradually. 
There shall be an abolition, but it shall begin moderately, proceed 
leisurely, and be completed sometime or — never. Thus the poor 
slave may comfort himself, that at some distant period, when, God 
only knows, he or his children, or his children's children may hope 
for deliverance." 



23 

Why are not all in favor of immediate emancipation ? Mr. Fiske 
gives us very correct and satisfactory reasons, and they are as ap- 
plicable at this day as they were when first spoken. 

" Some are for setting them free immediately. They are not for 
continuing an abus^ of the most cruel nature under any pretext what- 
ever. And why are not all of this opinion ? It is because many are 
PREJUDICED, and many are indolent, and very many are interested, 
not to mention that most people pay but very little attention to the 
subject. 

With a warmth of feeling worthy of the man, he abjures the idea 
of holding property in man. He is commenting upon a remark of 
James Madison. 

" 0! it is doubtless cruel to deprive a master of the slave for whom 
he paid forty guineas, and has had his labor for not more than forty 
years ! But to whom did he pay the guineas? In the name of con- 
science, who had any right in the first place to sell negroes? If a 
shipload of Frenchmen were offered for sale, the enquiry would quick- 
ly be made. The principle would soon be established thatman could 
not be made the property of man.'''' ^ 

Our author was forty years in advance of his age. It will be seen 
by the following extract, that he seized upon the true principle of 
action, equality of rights. 

"Let who will startle or laugh, I stedfastly maintain that we must 

BRING THEM TO AN EQUAL STANDING IN POINT OF PRIVILEGES WITH THE 

whites ! They must enjoy all the rights belonging to human nature." 
We have quoted the preceding extracts to show in some degree the 
spirit of the times. Such feelings were not insulated and sol- 
itary. They were not the feelings of one or two, but they were the 
feelings of numbers. They were not the sentiments of weak-headed, 
indiscriminating zealots, but they were even the sentiments of men 
whose mental powers and moral traits were honored by the nation. 
The history of those days shows the great interest which some felt in 
behalf of the slave. It shows too that this interest was constantly in- 
creasing. The slave trade was the great object of abhorrence, for 
that was mistakenly considered the sole parent and upholder of slav- 
ery itself. Many felt, and that deeply, that the constitution in sanction- 
ing that accursed traffic, in providing for its continuance for a series 
of years, had set the seal of its approbation on unwarrantable crime. 
Their chief attention and efforts were therefore turned to effect its 
abolition. They thought that by doing this, they should destroy the 
whole evil. The excitment that existed in the country from 1794 to 
1808, was far greater than is now felt, notwithstanding the efforts of 
abolitionists. * But this excitement was quieted by the abolition of the 
foreign slave tradp, at the latter named period.* People supposed 

*The importation of Africans into the United States ceased by law on the 
1 Jan. 1808. In England the slave trade had been abolished the preceding 
year. Long and arduous was the struggle to obtain this desirable object. 
''Many philanthropists raised their voice in favor of the unhappy Africans, 
many politicians attempted to remove the stain from their country, and ma- 
ny christians wept over the thought that such crimes jjould be tolerated in 



24 

ihey had done all they could do, all that was necessary to do. They 
supposed the great battle had been fought, the victory and boon of 
victory won. With the legal abolition of the trade, they supposed the 
death blow of slavery itself had been struck. This delusion, howev- 
er, soon passed away. Reflecting men saw that*one of the branches 
only had been lopped away, but that the tree itself with all its bitter 
fruits, flourished as of yore. The census of 1810 exhibited the fearful 
increase of the slaves, and it was at once perceived that a more direct 
and energetic remedy was demanded. From that period up to 1816, 
popular feeling became rapidly and extensively excited, and a strong 
and deep abhorrence of slavery was prevalent in many portions of the 
country. Public sympathy was touched. "Had public opinion and 
public feeling," says a gentleman of Maryland, "continued for five 
years as it was in 1794 and 1816, every slave would have been freed." 
In Dec. 1816, the American Colonization Society was organized at 
Washington. It was organized very opportunely for the slave hold- 
er. Public opinion had taken a direction which threatened to rescue 
the victim of avarice from him . It could not be utterly stayed, though 
it^might be deceived and turned aside. This society, by falling in 
with the prejudices of the whites, and holding out promises of much 
good to Africa through the influence of colonies, smothered again the 
bursting volcano. It served as a kind of safety valve to let ofi" tlie 
superabundant excitement which had else continued to gather, and 
would finally have carried forward the car of abolition to the goal of 
truth. But under the lulling influence of this syren, public opinion 
again slumbered, and the poor slave was again left to the lash and 
outrages of a tyrant master, and the tender mercies of expatriation. 

In 1831, commenced a new era in Anti-Slavery reform. In Janu- 
ary of that year, William Lloyd Garrison, a name which should be 
dear to the negro, and to every friend of liberty and justice, establish- 
ed the Liberator^ at Boston. Without a subscriber to their paper, liv- 
ing upon bread and water, that they migkt have the means of prose- 
cuting the object, he with his worthy partner and coadjutor sounded 
the trump of warning and alarm in the ears of the people, he has 
without faltering continued to denounce the giant enormities of slav- 
ery, and to point out plainly and urgently the duty which christians 
and patriots have to perform. To his untiring labors we must refer 
the wonderful change which has taken place in public feeling within 
the last four years. By the Liberator were sown in our State the 
first healthful seeds of abolitionism. 

In 1832, the New-England Anti-Slavery Society was fornied at 
Boston, embracing at that time only twelve members, who were 
termed by way of reproach and contempt, ' ardent* young men,' 

a christian land. The miserits of the poor Africans were sung by the bards 
of England, were declaimed upon by their orators, and even discussed by 
their sages ; but neither the song, nor the declamation, nor the argument 
for a long time mitigated their destiny." But at length, the efforts of 
Clarkson, Sharp and Wilberforce triumphed over every obstacle. 

*Ia connexion with Mr. Isaac Knapp. 



25 

'incendiaries,' 'fanatics,' and *hot-headeu zealots.* In December, 
1833, a convention of about sixty delegates from various parts of the 
country, met at Philadelphia, and formed the American Anti-Slaverv 
Society, the second Annual meeting of which was held on the 12th 
of the last month. There are now six State Societies auxiliary to 
it: viz. the Massachusetts, organized in January, 1832, under the 
name of the New England Anti-Slavery Society; Vermont, formed in 
May. 1834 ; Maine, in October, 1834; New Hampshire, in November, 
1834; Kentucky, 19 March, 1835; and Ohio, 27 April, 1835. 

Of the rise and progress of Anti-Slavery in this State, there are 
few incidents to relate. This Society is yet in its infancy, and has 
hitherto made no systematic and united efforts. Whatever has been 
done, has been mostly done by Tcmm societies and by the generous 
exertions of insulated individuals. The earliest movements were 
made, we believe, at Plymouth and Windham. As an instance to 
illustrate the rapid progress of abolition principles, it may be well 
to remark, that in May, 1833, there "was not a solitary emancipation- 
ist in the town of Plymouth." In the course of that year, discus- 
sion on Anti-Slavery and the distribution of publications relating to 
that subject, diffused much light, and before the close of the year, a 
Society was formed. It is now large and flourishing. Ninety mem- 
bers Avere addM to it on one single occasion. 

The first organized and efficient movement was made last June, 
in Concord. The debate then held betv^'^een a ^e\Y abolitionists and 
their opponents, did njore to awaken the people than any single effort 
which has been made. The visit of our excellent brother, Charles 
Stuart, who was present on that occasion, was made very oppor- 
tunely. His address was well received and produced much good. Af- 
ter that, came on the discussion. Several very interesting and impor- 
tant questions Avere agitated, and the principles and influences of the 
Colonization and Anti-Slavery Societies were very ably developed. 
Although at first the debate was carried on with a kind and forbear- 
ing spirit, yet during the afternoon of the last day, the friends of 
Anti-Slavery met with much violent opposition and were even 
threatened with a mob. The truth however was proclaimed with bold- 
ness, and we have evidence of its successful progress in the formation 
of this Society, and the great accessions which have been made to 
our ranks during the past year. The Legislature was then in session, 
and many persons from different and distant parts of the State were 
present during the disscussion, and when they left, carried with 
them to their homes, the doctrines which were then inculcated. 
Thus the seeds of abolitionism were scattered as on the four winds 
throughout New Hampshire. 

The visit of the Rev. Drs. Reed and Matheson to this State last 
September deserves to be remembered among the records of Anti- 
Slavery movements. Their remarks at the meeting of the Associa- 
tion at Meredith, gave a strong impulse to the cause among the nu- 
merous ministers present, and tended greatly to arouse public feeling 
in various parts of New England.* With a kind, brotherly spirit, 

• See Dr. Matheson's remarks in N. H. Observer of Sept. 1834, 
3 



26 

they besought American Christians to take the subject of Slavery 
into serious consideration. They recounted the success which had 
crowned the efforts of British Christians and the great responsibilities 
which rested on their brethren here. Thus exhorted, a committee 
was appointed "to consider the expediency of calling a Deliberative 
Convention" in New Hampshire, for the especial purpose, as it was 
understood, to discuss the subject referred to them by^ the delegates 
from England. The Committee, after due consultation* reported that 
it was not practicable to call a Deliberative Convention that fall : but 
deemed it best to postpone it to some more convenient season. 
The friends of immediate emancipation, however, thought it not ex- 
pedient to wait for their movements, but concluded to hold a con- 
vention in Concord as soon as proper notice could be given. The 
call was signed by sixteen clergymen of different denominations, 
and the convention was holden on the 11th and 12ih November, 
1834. There were present on the occasion several distinguished 
gentlemen from the neighboring States, and a very interesting and 
instructive discussion was had. A thorough investigation of several 
important principles and theories \vas entered into; sucli an investi- 
gation as leads to the truth and prepares the mind to receive its 
practical intluences. As a result of the convention, a State Socie- 
ty was formed, and an address to the People of New Hampshire 
published. 

In connection with the Convention nay be mentioned the attack 
on the Ladies of Concord on the evening of the 14 November, while 
listening to an adcjress from that eloquent philanthropist, George 
Thompson, from England, who had attended the Convention. They 
had invited him to deliver an address to them on his return from 
Plymouth, and while they were peaceably assembled in the Court 
Room, a mob broke in upon them, and endeavored by hissing, 
groaning, throwing missiles, and uttering vociferations, &:c. to in- 
timidate them and drive them from the house. Their efforts, howev- 
er, were ineffectual. The Ladies stood firm, and despite their brutal 
insults, heard the lecture to its close. 

Of the doings of this Society in its official capacity during the few 
months since it Avas formed, but little can be said. It has not offi- 
cially acted to any considerable extent. The members, however, in 
their private character have labored efficiently. The thanks of all 
friends of the cause are particularly due to Pvev. George Storks, for 
his able and generous advocacy of the rights of the oppressed. 
Others might be named who have actively and perseveringly labor- 
ed in the same glorious cause. It is hoped ten-fold more zeal and 
energy will be ^di^played hereafter, that an example may be set to 
our sister States worthy of their imitation. 

The tour of Messrs. Thompson and Phelps, made through several 
parts of the State in November and January last, have been abun- 
dantly blessed. It gave an impulse to the philanthropy and zeal of 
our own citizens, which we trust will prove effectual to the regen- 
eration of the people of New Hampshire. Societies were organized 
in several of the towns which they visited, and an unwonted degree 
of interest excited wherever they lectured. 



27 

During the past year, the following Town Societies have been form- 
ed : Plymouth (female) ; Concord 2 (male and female) ; Great 
Falls ; Windham ; Dunbarton ; Dover 2 (male and female) ; Henni- 
ker; Sanbornton ; Campion ; Weare; Canaan; Loudon; Goffstown. 
Total, 15. The number of members belonging to these several 
Societies we have not been able to ascertain. They are all how- 
ever known to be flourishing and efficient. Addresses have been 
delivered before all of them except the last two, and some efforts 
have been made by several in distributing books and papers. Fires 
have been lit up in various sections of the Slate, and we trust they 
will continue to spread light and life till the darkness which has 
for years hung over us, shall give place to the noon day, of christian 
charity and holiness. .' 

The Ladies of New Hampshire deserve to be remembered with 
expressions of high commendation. With the energy and firmness 
of Judith, when she stood in the tent of Holofernes, but with a mild 
and chastened temper which asks not for blood, but for justice and 
mercy, they have engaged in the warfare against passion and legaliz- 
ed villany, — against that sin which is desolating the homes of the 
South, and leaving misery and despair, deep and fearful, among 
the daughters of that beautiful land. The outrages and wrongs of 
their sisters 'in bonds have met with a noble res{)onse in their 
bosoms. A sympathy has been awakened there, which prompts to 
unceasing action. The ruthless sacrifice of the heart's purest affec- 
tions, the unhallowed desecration of female rights and privileges, 
the wanton plundering of the mother and the wail of the stolen 
child, the moan of innocence violated, is rousing them to active 
measures of intercession. True to their own nature, true to the 
holy impulses of charity and love, they have taken a high stand in 
succor of the oppressed and degraded slave. Of the Society in 
Concord we can speak — for we are more acquainted with its doings — 
in terms of particular praise. Undismayed by mobs and unawed 
by the excitements of the enterprize, they have commenced the work 
of reform in the 'Granite State,' and unless the people who breathe 
its air, have feelings more rugged than their native hills, it will 
prove successful. They have procured addresses ; they have dis- 
tributed widely books, pamphlets and papers, and by the labors of 
the needle are preparing to reach the heart through the medium of 
the eye. A portion of their monthly meetings is devoted to work, 
the proceeds of which are to go to aid the general advancement of 
the cause. Their engagedness and perseverance are worthy of all 
imitation. We hope all throughout New Hampshire will be moved 
by their example, and by the facts which they have disseminated ; 
to rise up with the mighty influences of womati, in behalf of their 
oppressed sisters in bondage. 

The newspaper press in this State is almost entirely silent. We 
regret much to see the indifference which prevails generally among 
our political editors in regard to that vital question — not only of 
moral but of political integrity. It would not seem that with such 
ardent expressions of patriotism and philanthropy on their lips, 
Jhey would remain unmoved by the wrongs and woes inflicted by 



28 

the hand of law upon two millions of their countrymen. But so if 
is. Whether from motives of expediency or lack of reflection and 
information, the press is muzzled — is closed almost to any appeal in 
behalf of the abused negro. We are happy however to know there 
are some few exceptions. Still as a general thing, the people hear 
nothing of slavery, — are not told of the hard bondage, the innumer- 
able outrages and oppressions which exist in the land, through 
the leading political prints. The religious periodicals, of which we 
have few, are more open to discussion, although they are too much 
trammelled with doubts and fears to act so efficiently as we would 
wish. 

The pulpit has assumed a tone within the last year, which is truly 
encouraging. It has spoken with energy and directness, and ex- 
erted a powerful influence on public feeling. Never before has it 
uttered such earnest appeals in behalf of the oppressed. On the^ 
occasion of the last annual Fast, several clergymen preached dis- 
courses on Slavery, choosing for their text the appropriate words 
of Isaiah xl. 6. Such a course was unusual in by-gone days, and 
served greatly to arouse attention and lead the mind to inquiry and 
candid examination. There is still in many places a woful silence 
on this subject. Some are fearful ; many are prejudiced, and very 
many unaware of the vast responsibilities which are upon them. 
The greater part have never inquired, and know not the demands 
for action and interference which exist. They have not remembered 
that the slaves are many of them heathen— men to whom the truths 
of the gospel have never been proclaimed, and who are utterly 
ignorant of the true God, the Saviour, and the realities of another 
existence.* They have not reflected that pagan worship is offered 
in our land— that Mahometanism is a living religion in the United 
States.! They have not reflected that the calls for missionary effort 
in the South, are as imperious and loud as those which come to us 
from the benighted regions of Africa. But it is hoped, as light in- 
creases, their hearts will be reached, and the whole brotherhood 
of Christ's consecrated servants rise up as one man in condemnation 
of the sin of slavery. The few clergymen who have lifted up their 
voice against the iniquity, have set a noble example. May that 
example hasten the glorious era of universal emancipation !^ 

* The truth of this is acknowledged even by intelligent men of the slave- 
holding States. In the St. Louis Observer of the 7ih of May, 1835, we 
find the following statement by the Editor of that paper : " Alas ! in our 
own State, many Christians no more thinkof instructing their slaves in 
religion, than they do their horses. This may seem, and it is, a strong 
expression, but it just contains the simple truth and nothing mo.re. To 
our certain hwrvUdge, there are Presbyterian professors in this State, who 
just as little think of calling their slaves in to attend family worship, as 
any of the domestic animals about the house. The servant is sent lo 
work in the field, or left to play in the kitchen, while the master remains 
to pray with the white folks before the family altar." 
t Dickinson's Sermon. 

X Since this Report was written, an Anti-Slavery Society has been 
fonned among the ministers belonginer to the N. F-. Conference of Methodist 



29 

We highly rejoice in the assurance, that the church in her might 
is coming up to the rescue of the oppressed. She has long been 
guilty of tolerating in her midst, an abomination which the heathen 
would scarcely endure. She has sanctioned the unchristian distinc- 
tion of caste, and suffered, with but feeble remonstrance, the wor^ 
ship of an unknown God to exist witbin the compass of her influence. 
The cries of those who have reaped down her fields, whose wages 
she has kept back by fraud, have entered into the ears of the Lord 
of Sabaoth. She has received into her treasury the -price of blood. 
But she is awakening and purifying herself of the iniquity. .She is 
taking fast hold of the cause of immediate abolition, and a new 
hope springs in the breast of the afflicted, as he hears her advancing 
with the voice of the everlasting gospel. 

The Synod of Illinois, at the meeting held in Springfield, in that 
State, in October of last year, after a full and free discussion of the 
question of slavery, unanimously adopted the following resolution: — 

Resolved, That this Synod do most earnestly recommend to the 
<;hurches under our care, the use of all proper means to effect the 
speedy emancipation of the slaves in the United States, and especial- 
ly in the Presbyterian Church. This Synod do consider the existing 
system of holding in involuntary slavery their fellow men, as a crime 
of no ordinary character, against ivhich they do hereby most earnestly 
mid solemnly testify. 

At a regular meeting of the Hancock (Me) Ministerial Confer- 
ence, held in Surry in May last, the subject of slavery was taken 
up. After discussion, the following resolutions were passed unan- 
imously : — 

" 1. Resolved, That, in the opinion of this Conference, the system 
of slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a sin of inconceivable 
magnitude ; and, that, supported as it is by law, for systematic 
cruelty and deep atrocity, it has no parallel in the history of the world. 

"2. Resolved, That, in the opinion of this Conference, the only 
proper and efficient remedy for this appalling evil, is immediate 

EMANCIPATION. 

"3. Resolved, That, in the opinion of this Conference, the Ameri- 
can Anti-Slavery Society, based as it is on this correct and scriptural 
principle of immediate emancipation^, is a noble and christian in- 
stitution, and merits the patronage of an enlightened community."* 

Churches — and no less than 60 names had been subscribed, Friday the 
19th of June. 

* We cannot here omit noticing the different character of the vote of th<p 
Monadnock Association in our own State, which for a time closed the 
columns of the Observer against the discussion of abolition principles. 
The vote itself, -which passed (nemine contradicente) in Nov. 1834, is 
sufficient for out purpose, without any remarks of our own. " It" was 
v*ted that a committee be appointed to confer with the Editors of the N. H. 
Observer, and express to them the disapprobation of this Association of 
introducing into the paper a discussion of the Colonization and Abolition 
^nciples, believing that the religious influence of the paper will be much 
Hijured by pacty discussions of this character." An intimation was also 
3# 



30 

. An Anti-Slavery Conference of church members was formed m 
Boston last April. These, with several other movements of like 
character, show plainly the advance of abolition principles. 

The friends of abolition often meet with several objections, the 
most specious and weighty of which it may perhaps be proper to 
notice. Cavillers have been found in all ages, and skeptics, honest 
perhaps, but short-sighted, have ever been ready to doubt concern- 
ing the goodness or feasibility of every cause. Prejudice and pas- 
sion, and who is free from them ? warp the judgment and pervert 
fearfully our inquiries after truth. Preconceived opinions and long 
habitudes of thought and feeling, are like walls of adamant around 
the citadel of error. It is not strange that we should find opponents 
in this cause, although it is emphatically the cause of truth and of 
God. It oftentimes comes in conflict with man's selfishness, and 
oftener with bitter and inveterate prejudices. It strikes at the cor- 
ruptions of corrupt nature, and no wonder it meets with opposition. 
Some objectors are willing to know the truth and to embrace it, 
but have not yet had their doubts of expediency and propriety 
suflficiently removed to go forward with us in the great work of 
Negro emancipation. To them we shall endeavor to reply with can- 
dor and plainness, and with a simple desire for the triumph of the 
truth. 

I. We at the North have nothing to do rvith slavery. This objec- 
tion meets us at the outset. Our opponents are ever hurling this 
in our teeth, and gratulating over it as though it were insuperable. 
What have we to do with slavery ? say they. We answer, much. 
It is the cause of humanity, and whatever concerns man concerns 
us. Our interests are the interests of the Avorld. Man is not an in- 
sulated being, whose welfare is distinct from all around. He is 
connected by a thousand ties, which he cannot break, to the whole 
family of man. He has a duty to perform to others as well as to 
himself His well-being is the well-being of his kind- Why did 
Howard leave the precincts of his own little neighborhood and go 
forth with his life in his hand on his pilgrimage of love ? What 
carried him into the close huts of the poor, the heart-broken, the 
vicious ? Whit lighted his path into the dark and dreary prison- 
house, and nerved him with more than human strength to penetrate 
the strong holds of corruption and crime, and urged him to minister 
to those whom society had given over to unpitied retribution? What 
went with him to degraded Ireland, to bigoted and oppressed Spain, 
to France with its palaces and Bastiles, to far Austria with it.* 
harons and serfs.? It was the pure influence of universal philan- 
thropy, which should stir the heart of every living being. It wa^ 
the spirit of Him who went about doing good, whose mission on 
earth was a mission of mercy and good- will, whose blessings were 
bestowed on the Gentile as well as on the Jew, on the uncircum- 
cised as well as on those who had sealed their faith and election 

given, " that if the present course [the discussion of those principles] is 
pursued, MANY will speedily withdraw from the support of the paper f' 
N. H.Observer, 14 Nov. 1834. 



31 

•with the bloody sign. Oar charities are not to be hedged in by lh«t 
conventional boundaries of the geographer. Latitude and longitude 
can no more become the landmarks of our benevolence and philan- 
thropy, than the valleys where we first opened our eyes on the world 
can restrain within its borders the winds which bond and free may 
breathe. The world, the world has its demands upon our hearts. 

But aside from the general ties which bind us to the weal and 
wo of our fellow men, we have particular duties to perform to our- 
selves and to our country. If the general claims of humanity are 
not sufficient to incite us to action and interference in behalf of the 
slave, there are specific reasons which may be given. 

The District of Columbia is under the sole legislation of Congress. 
New Hampshire has as much power there, according to her represen- 
tation, as any other State, and has as much right to interfere in its 
government as any slave State. This is the grand mart of the do- 
mestic slave-trade. Under the very wings of the Capitol, and with 
the flag of freedom waving above them, men possessing the inalien- 
able right of liberty, are sold at auction, and for no crime, dragged to 
the burning and pestilential fields of the far South, there to toil un- 
remittingly without reward and to die a premature death ffom over 
exertion. Licenses are given there to barter in the souls of men. 
Negroes are driven in there from the adjoining States as cattle are 
driven into the Brighton market. Prisons are erected, some of them 
at out expense, to secure to the master his property — his property in 
the image of God! Thousands are exported annually from that little 
spot. Houses are established there for the sole business of slave- 
trading. 

The foreign slave-trade has been pronounced piracy. If a person 
traffics in negroes across the Atlantic, he forfeits his life. But there 
is now carried on between the northern and southern slave States^ a 
trade not less unjust and cruel than that on which Congress has plac- 
ed the penally of death. The extent to which it is carried is proba- 
bly little known to the people of New Hampshire. At a recent meet- 
ing of the Fayettville, (N. C) Colonization Society, Rev. Dr. Graham 
stated that there were nearly 7000 slaves offered in the New Orleans 
market last winter; from Virginia alone, 6000 are ann.ually sent to 
the south, and from Virginia and North Carolina there had gone in 
the same direction in the last 20 years, 300,000 soulsl A member of 
Congress states that 2,000,000 of dollars were brought into Virginia in 
one year, the proceeds of slaves carried principally to Louisiana. — 
The District of Columbia is the central point* of this horrible traffic. 
The dealers collect their victims from various parts to this spot con- 
secrated to liberty, and lodge them in some place of confinement till 
their lot is completed- They then turn them out like a drove of cat- 
tle, chained and shackled, exposed to the jests and tyranny of their 
fellow men, and driven about under the excitement of the lash.— 
Formed into large coffles, they set out on their dreary journey to the 
fatal sugar fields of the far South. A gentleman thus describes a cof- 
fle in Kentucky. "I discovered about 40 black men, all chained to- 
gether in the following manner ; — each of them was hand-cuffed,and 
tkey were arranged in rank and file- A chain, perhaps forty feet ioojj. 



32 

was stretched between the two ranks, to which short chains were 
joined, which connected with the hand-cuffs. Behind these, I suppose, 
were thirty women in double rank — tlie couples tied hand io hand.— 
Sometimes however, indeed often, they are shipped on board regular 
packet boats and transported to the destined mart, in the close holds 
of the crowded slaver." Rev- Mr. Leavitt, of New York, visited one 
of these floating prisons in the winter of 1834. It belonged to Frank- 
lin and Armfield of Alexandria, and is thus described : "Her name is 
the Tribune. The captain very obligingly took us to all parts of the 
ressel. The hold is appropriated to the slaves, and is divided into 
two apartments. The after hold will carry about SO women, and the 
other about 100 men. On either side were two platforms rmming 
the whole length ; one raised a few inches and the other halfway up 
the deck. They were about five or six feet deep. On these the slaves 
lie as close as they can stow away." 

The effect of this trade upon its victims is terrible. Familfes are 
indiscriminately broken up. Parents are selected and driven off with- 
out regard to their children ; husband and wife are torn asunder ac- 
cording to the caprice or interest of the dealer; in short all the social 
relations utterly disregarded. As an instance of the practical opera- 
tion of this system authorized by Congress and fortified by public 
sentiment, not only in the South, but at the North, we give the fol- 
lowing : 

"Visiting the prison," says Mr. Minor, " and passing through the 
avenues that lead to the cells, I was struck with the appearance of a 
woman, having three or four children with her— one at the breast- 
She presented such an aspect of wo, that I could not help inquiring 
her story. It was simply this : she was a slave, but had married a 
man who was free. By him she had eight or nine children. Moved 
by natural affection, the father labored to support the children; but 
as they attained the age to be valuable in the market, perhaps 10 or 
12, the master sold them. One after another was taken away and 
sold to the slave dealers. She had now come to an age to be no lon- 
ger profitable as a breeder, and her master had separated her from her 
husband, and all the associations of life, and sent her and her children 
to YOUR prison for sale."* 

But the evil does not end here. This trade is not confined to 
acknowledged slaves. Free persons of color are kidnapped and sold 
into irremediable and hopeless bondage. The toleration of this traf- 
fic is a bounty to the kijJnapper. Negroes are enticed away on some 
errand, seized and hurried off to the South. As an illustration, we 
copy the following as related by Mr. Minor to the House of Eepre- 
sentatives : 

"A free colored man had married a slave— with the avails of his 
industry, he had, in the course of some years, purchased the freedom 
of his wife and children. He left home on business, and on his re"* 
turn, found his house tenantless. His wife and children were miss- 
ing. It was soon ascertained that they had been kidnapped by slave 
dealers, and confined in a private prison in Alexandria; from whence 

* Mr. Minoi'^s speech in CoD?:ress. 



33 

they had afterwards been sent to a distant market and wefe forever 
lost to the husband and the father." 

The spirit of tyranny is breathing in every law relating to the col- 
ored people in this District. A negro going there is liable to be seized 
and incarcerated in the public jail. His color is presumptive proof of 
his being a slave, — presumptive proof, it would seem,of some heinous 
crime. No matter how honest or industrious; no matter though he 
has possessed the right of citizenship and voted for the highest offi- 
cers of our republic; no matter though he has fought for the liberties 
of his country; he is liable to be arrested and imprisoned, and finally 
sold into slavery to defray the expense of his own unjust seizure. — 
Even though he prove his freedom, unless he will pay the fees and 
rewards of his arrest, he is liable to be sold into slavery for life.— 
These miquitous proceedings are taking place in a District over which 
the free States have control. The Constitution gives to Congress, by 
express provision, the power to "exercise exclusive legislation in all 
cases whatsoever" over it. Congress not only has the power to abol- 
ish slavery here, but it alone possesses it. The States in their sep- 
arate capacity cannot do it. Congress and Congress alone^ has the 
right of legislation over it. If they cannot do any thing, no authori- 
ty can. Here then we have power. Here we can act directly. The 
free States have a majority of the Representatives, and whenever 
they see proper to go forward, the District of Columbia will be free 
from tolerating a trade, alike abhorrent to the feelings of a republican 
and a christian. 

And have we nothing, then, to do with slavery? In the name of 
religion and common humanity, we would ask if we are bound to 
witness such horrid oppression and iniquity as are now desolating 
the sunny fields of the South, without a word in reprobation ? Have 
we nothing to do with slavery when the cries and groans of its vic^ 
tims are ascending up to Heaven on every breeze? Have we noth- 
ing to do with slavery when even the Union of the States is perilled 
by its continuance? Nothing to do with slavery which makes out 
Declaration of Independence a mockery and a hiss? Nothing to do 
with slavery when the whole land is full of blood guiltiness ; when 
the wail of the crushed spirit; the agony of the violated and broken 
heart ; the cries of manhood plundered and debased ; the tears and 
supplications of woman in her wo are mingling with every breath of 
Heaven? Nothing to do with slavery, when we, freemen and chris- 
tians, are taxed, aye, taxed to support the accursed system ? when 
standing armies are kept up at our own expense to keep down the 
aspiring spirit of our fellow beings.'' Nothing to do with slavery when 
the District of Columbia is polluted with the shambles of human fl:esh 
and human souls; when the territories are fast filling up with the 
slave master and his slave ; when the waters of this republic are 
ploughed by the keel of the slaver ; and the whole land from Mary- 
land to Missouri is cursed with the domestic slave trade ? Nothing 
to do with slavery, when the heathen at our own doors, and around 
our own altars, are lifting the hand against us; when the great earth- 
quake is shaking the nation, and the pillars of our government are 
trembling beneath the burden ? If any man can lay his hand upoa 



34 

his heart, and continue quiet and inactive at this crisis, the judgment 
of the Lord be upon him, not ours. 

Farther, let it be remembered that we are bound by our allegiance 
to the Constitution to give, not our private influence, but our open 
and armed support to this system. We are not permitted to take 
neutral ground and look passively on, while wrongs and woes are 
heaped and multiplied without measure upon our brethren ; but we 
are compelled to strengthen the oppressor when his own hands 
have become too weak for his task of outrage. Let it be remember- 
ed, we repeat, that the Constitution binds us " to suppress insurrec- 
tions," and that we are liable to be called upon at any moment to 
perform such a duty. At the North there is but little fear of it. 
The South, where slavery exists and is ever ready to burst forth in 
a whirlwind of ruin upon the land, there is no rest or security. 
Should the poor victim of injustice, instead of calmly submitting 
to his wrongs, be maddened to desperation, and turn at bay for re- 
venge and blood, and peril his burdened life for freedom, we, we 
who breathe the free air of New England, are liable to be called 
upon to leave our peaceful firesides and homes to assist in their 
subjugation, to scourge down to a still more abject bondage the 
spirit striving for its natural birthright. The Greeks, and latterly 
the Poles, struggled nobly for emancipation, and all our sympathies 
were given to themwithout constraint. Money was even sent to them, 
and volunteers were ready to pour out their blood in their behalf. 
But should the black man rise up and assert his primal indepen- 
dency, we must, forsooth, without any hesitation or qualms of 
conscience, go at the point of the bayonet to repress his manly 
aspirations, j^nd yet have we nothing to do with slavery? Is this 
state of things always to exist, and are we to make no efforts for 
our emancipation ? Shall we be slaves eternally to such a system 
of outrage and oppression ? Are we bound to keep the slave in 
subjection, and yet no right to attempt a peaceable removal of the 
evil ? Are we to be forever chained to this Juggernaut, suiting our 
course according to the beck and bid of the proud, blood-thirsty 
image within it? Is it indeed treason to make an effort for the 
rescue? Are we so bound to the master that we have no right to 
interfere for the slave '? Or are we to wait till the ruin is bursting 
upon us ? Are we to feel the heavings of the volcano beneath our 
feet, and hear the roarings of the flames below, and see its warning 
flashes breaking up through the half uncapped crater, without an 
effort to extinguish and soothe down the pent fires ? Are we to wait 
till the lava has broken forth and is scathing all around us, and 
pouring desolation, thrice told, on the blooming regions of the South? 
No, thank God ! We have not thus read our privileges. We are 
not such craven spirits. We have a duty, and we dare do it too. 
The danger we foresee, we will not madly suffer to come upon us, 
the ruin which repentance and action can avert, shall not fall upon 
our heads. 

Will any one, in view of this, say that we have nothing to do with 
slavery? If they will not be influenced by the claims of mercy and 
humanity, will they not be moved by iuterest ? Although we grant 



35 

their assertion that we have now nothing to do with slavery, yet 
should the slave rise in insurrection we should have enough to do 
with it, and the master himself would doubtless think so. Have we 
not as much right to interfere now as then? Shall we not in time 
of peace anticipate and provide against war? 

II. But the North is opposed to slavery now, says an objector. If 
that is the case, we have only to reply, let that opposition be com- 
bined and made to bear directly on the slave States. Let public 
sentiment speak out in tones of warning and remonstrance. Let 
there be but one voice heard among us, and let that roll over the 
whole South in one full peal of intercession and christian rebuke. 

But we deny that the North is thus opposed to slavery. We 
deny it because we see strong evidence to the contrary. We see 
ministers of the gospel, the anointed servants of Him who preach- 
ed deliverance to the captives, pressing the Bible into a defence of 
this accursed system. We see leading men at the North, men of 
acknowledged piety and influence, taking open sides with the op- 
pressor, and apologizing boldly for his deeds of sin. We see the 
finger of scorn pointed at those who are laboring in behalf of the 
down-trodden slave. We see mobs breaking up the assemblies of 
those who had come together to pray and mutually inquire what 
was duty. We see the smile of scorn and contempt even on female 
lips when the negroes' rights are mentioned. 

It is said every man in New England abhors slavery. We grant 
it in the same manner and in the same degree that a drunkard abhors 
intemperance — in the abstract and in conversation. The practice is 
quite a different affair. The drunkard abhors intemperance, and 
yet he will continue to drink and become intoxicated day after daf 
and year after year, and finally goes down to the grave a miserable 
sot. The people of the North abhor slavery heartily in the abstract^ 
but then they sanction it in the concrete as a very harmless thing. 
Hold up to them the skeleton of the system — slavery in the ab- 
stract — take away from it all that ever makes it desirable, — the 
gratification it offers to passion and avarice and pride — all the flesh 
and trappings which impart beauty to it, they shrink from it, as 
well they may do, in horror. But let it be decked in the purple of 
the prince or the harlot, let the golden bands and the rich pearls and 
the rustling silks of Eastern splendor be thrown aro^.md it; let a 
living and a breathing form be given il; — and they are ready and 
rejoiced to embrace it. They abhor slavery, but love most dearly 
to hold slaves ! Whenever they go where slavery is tolerated, thef 
very soon become masters, masters, too, of the most cruel and fero- 
cious character. 

* Slavery is a monstrous evil,' say some of our New Hampshire 
divines, ' but then we have a brother at the South whose whole 

f property is vested in Slaves, in the souls of men : he would be utter- 
y ruined were it abolished. We would not be thought to apologise 
for slavery, but then we think there are certain cases where it m 
justifiable. We pray you not to be so indiscriminating in your at- 
tacks upon slave-holders.' (That is, except our brpther.) And ithwy 
add in an under tone by way of commendation of our intentiost^, 



36 

' You would do rauch good were your efforts made South of the 
Potomac' 

* Slavery is a monstrous evil,'" says a young graduate, as he turns 
his back with a lofty air upon the halls of Dartmouth, and seeks 
his fortune amid the beauty of the South ; ' but then we in New 
Hampshire all abhor it. These abolitionists are surely fanatics or 
hypocrites to make such a stir here.' ' Slavery is a monstrous evil,' 
he exclaims as he utters the response which gives him not merely a 
nabob's daughter for his bride, but what cheers his heart still more, 
a nabob's plantation of slaves as a marriage portion. ' What a noise 
ihey make at the North about slavery,' he continues, after a few 
years of silence. ' The dough faces had better take care of their 
own business; they know nothing of our real situation. We are 
not accountable for our father's sins. We would be glad to get rid 
of slavery, but it has been tin fortunately entailed upon us, and we 
must bear it.' 'What have we at the North to do with slavery/ 
say that renagade's parents, who are rejoicing in their son's good 
fortune in having married an heiress to some hundreds of slaves ; 
'it is a monstrous evil, we feel no disposition to doubt on the sub- 
ject. We believe, however, there are certain circumstances under 
which it is excusable.' And thus while a child of theirs, educated 
under their own care and direction, is living riotously upon the 
fruits of the slave's unrequited toils, they decide without hesitation 
that the North is opposed to slavery ! 

'What hot-headed fellows these abolitionists are,' says the politi- 
cal demagogue ; ' why don't they go to the South and preach ; we 
are all opposed to slavery.' The next year he goes to Congress. 
A territory wishes to be admitted into the union with the power of 
holding slaves. With the votes of the slave-holders goes the vote 
of our northern member, in favor of its admission. Or perhaps a 
few ' fanatics' petition Congress to abolish slavery in the District 
of Columbia, Avhere it possesses the undoubted power and right so 
10 do. With the votes of the slave-holders goes the vote of our 
northern member — against it. He is a slaveite. 

The above are specimens of Northern opposition to slavery. Such 
feelings are, we fear, the prevailing feelings of New England. In 
words the North is opposed to slavery— in sentiment not. Here 
then is room for the efforts of abolitionists, and till the work of re- 
■form is completed among ourselves, until we cease to apologize for 
the slave-holder and cease to become slave-holders ourselves — until 
slavery is abolished in the District of Columbia and the Territories. 
w-e need not preach to the South. 

nio But another objection meets us, the old cry of disunion.. 
The interference of the North, it is said, will excite the jealousies 
of our southern brethren, will cause alienation of feeling, and event- 
ually foment civil war. This certainly is a weighty reason, if well 
founded, and deserves the candid consideration of every abolitionist. 
Let us examine it. It will cause disunion. These United States 
stood shoulder to shoulder amid the strife of the Revolution, and 
against all the intrigues and power of foreign tyrants. The union 
was cemented in blood, and God commands that it be preserved - 



37 

But this agitation of the delicate question of slavery will tend to 
dissolve it. It will produce civil war. How so, we would ask ? 
The abolitionists will never fight. They are men of peace, holding 
no league with that unhallowed spirit which would promulgate its 
principles by the sword. The means by which they propose to act 
are moral ones. They disclaim all legislative and physical inter- 
ference. They do not wish to force the master to give up the slave. 
They do not go to him, and with their hands upon his throat, de- 
mand restitution of the rights of the oppressed. They would not 
arrogate to themselves the power of changing the unjust statutes, 
which now legalize robbery and wrong in the various States. This 
they leave to the slave-holder himself. They leave direct legislation 
where the Constitution has left it, to the individual States. What 
they propose to do, they can accomplish without such assumptions. 
Their weapons are moral ones. They are the sword of the spirit, 
the living truths of Jehovah. The abolitionists would smite the 
slave-holder with the invincible, immaculate principles of justice. 
They would go to him as ^o a brother. They would reason with 
him with plainness and sincerity, but in christian kindness and 
love. They would go to him with the Bible. They would place 
before him the command of the holy Jesus, " As ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye even so to them." They would point out 
the enormities of the system, the terrible evils it is inflicting on the 
slave, the inevitable ruin it is entailing upon themselves and their 
posterity. They would plead with him before God in behalf of the 
oppressed and degraded. They would carry their appeal home to 
his heart. They would awaken his conscience by the enlivening 
influences of the Gospel. They would convince him that slavery is 
a sin ; that it is safe, practicable, and a duty to abolish it immedi- 
ately. They would persuade him that it ought to be done. They 
would convince him of the duty of doing it, and leave it entirely to 
him to legislate for that purpose. Now what is there in all this 
that can lead to disunion and war ? What is there in all this that 
can cause alienation of feeling at the South, and lead to those fear- 
ful results which so many anticipate? Will such an interference as 
this cause disunion and political turmoil ? We cannot believe it. 

But they threaten it. Their feelings are already excited, it !$• 
said, and they have proclaimed, with no doubtful voice, 'war, war 
to the hilt.' We are afraid of a civil war, have they no fears of a 
servile one 1 Are the slaves so oppressed, so degraded and brutal- 
ized, that no excitement, no opportunities will stir them to one' 
full struggle for their liberty and life? Will they see the chains of a 
new and more unlimited dynasty clanking above their heads, nOr 
make one effort to burst those already forged ? And who will carry, 
on the war ? Not the slaves, for their masters will never venture 
to arm them. Not the free negro, whose lot is as abject as that of 
the slave. It must be carried on by the planter himself. And 
when he is away to the battle field, where will the long-oppressed 
slave be ? Will he remain quietly at work on the plantation, will 
he labor as wont amid the pestilential air of the sugar-house amL 
lice fields ? The independent yeomanry will sow and plant in hoTie, 
- 4 



38 

for they are to reap the fruits of their toils. But will the unrequited 
slave do the same ? Will he continue to pour out his sweat and 
blood for those who have robbed him of all which makes life valu- 
able ? Will he do it voluntarily ? 

But what will the South gain by a disunion, even though it be 
done peaceably? Will they thus be beyond our influence? Will 
they thus get away from our fanaticism ? Believe it not. The 
press will still be unmuzzled. Public sentiment will still be brought 
to bear upon them. Public opinion will still speak out and be heard 
echoing among their forests and within the streets of their cities. 
Northern remonstrance will still be uttered south of Mason and 
Dixon's line. Northern hearts will still act upon Southern hearts. 
There will still be a contention between justice and the iniquities 
of slavery. And it will continue till the land be purified, and the 
millions which are oppressed be suffered to go free. A mere with- 
drawal from the union is not a withdrawal from the influence of 
moral power. There is no spot on earth impregnable to the assaults 
of truth. Though it be as remote as the East and sundered by bit- 
ter prejudices; though the flaming sword of passion turn every way 
to protect it, still the entrenchments will be scaled and truth prove 
triumphant over error. Just as surely as there is a God above Avho 
heareth the cries of the afflicted, so surely will the pleas for mercy 
and justice in the North be heard and answered by kindly action at 
the South. 

Again, what will the South gain by disunion ? The moment the 
line of separation is drawn between us, that moment are the slaves 
free. The master at once loses his hold upon the throat of his vic- 
tim. The segis of no constitution Avill be over them. The enact- 
ments of justice never upheld them. The shield which the law oi 
the land had spread over him will be broken. If the slave escapes 
to the free States who will return him ? The moment he crosses 
the landmark which divides the two portions, he is emancipated 
and loosed. He breathes the air of the North and he is free. Noil\ 
the master comes to us Avith his finger on an article of the Constitu- 
tion and demands the return of his slave ; then no such demand 
can be made. If he escapes to the free States, the free States will 
be an inviolable asylum for him, as much so as any foreign govern- 
ment which tolerates not slavery. Believe us, the South knows 
too well the risks of a civil war ; it sees in the foreground a servile 
one. It knows too well the consequences, sure and inevitable, of a 
disunion : it will never venture them. 

But allowing all these fearful anticipations to be valid, are we to 
cease in our efforts in behalf of the afflicted and the oppressed? 
Are we tamely to suffer them to groan and agonize because, for- 
sooth, their masters threaten civil war and disunion '? We will not 
fight. We give them no occasion to pursue such a course. We 
intrude upon none of their rights. We trespass upon no ground 
forbidden by the Constitution or the love of justice and morality. 
We meet them in the field of discussion and fair argument : if they 
cannot abide that, they must be weak indeed. Will they fight us 
because we ask them to do justice to the wronged? Will our brother 



39 

smite us because we beseech him, in the name of God and human- 
ity, to cease from doing evil? Let him. We will do our duty, 
whatever may be the consequences. 

If we are to be governed by the blind threats of our opponents ; if 
we are to be turned aside from doing justice from a fear of its conse- 
quences, there is an end at once to all political and moral reform. 
Had the patriots of the Revolution been frightened from their career 
by the threats of George the Third and his ministers ; had they com- 
promised the principles of truth and justice with the commissioners 
who came over with plenary powers of pardon from his majesty ; had 
they shrunk from the position they had assumed before the world, 
where would now have been the freedom of these United States ? If 
Martin Luther had acted on such doctrines of expediency where would 
now be the blessings of the Reformation ? Where would be our Bi- 
bles and the freedom of our own and our father's worship 1 How lu- 
dicrous would have appeared the arguments of the opposers of the 
abolitionists when applied to the exertions of the protestants 1 Sup- 
pose a friend of Luther had come to him with such reasoning as this : 
*' We abhor the Roman Catholic doctrines as much as you do. We 
grant that they are depriving us of some of the dearest rights of hu- 
man nature; that they are burdening the body and degrading the mind, 
and that they ought to be reformed. We are as much opposed to 
them, we are as much protestant, as you are. But then look at the 
consequences ! Any action will bring ruin on the church. The Pope 
is jealous of every interference. He assumes the whole control of 
our conduct and consciences. He assumes to know what is best for 
his subjects. We certainly have a right to act in this matter, but 
then — then — we are so closely united now — so peaceable and happy ! 
and discussion will only cause unhappy divisions in the Holy 
Church ! True we are doing our duty, but the Pope threatens us with 
persecutions by fire and the sword. He will excommunicate us. 
He will brand us as heretics and outlaws, and we shall, peradventure, 
be hunted to a dreadful and premature death. We may be crushed 
on the rack of the inquisition, we may be burnt at the stake. These 
are fearful consequences brother Luther; let us keep still." What 
would have been the reply of that magnanimous man ? would he 
have shrunk at all from the work of purifying the church which the 
passions of man had corrupted? — They who bring up the objection 
we have examined would bring up the same arguments against the 
cause of temperance. Let it alone, say they, let it alone, you are ar- 
raying family against family, neighborhood against neighborhood, 
town against town. It will not do. It excites dissension in the so- 
cial circle, in the political world and in the church of God. But has 
it done this ? In some few instances it certainly has. But what has 
been the ultimate general effect ? Society is improved. Peace has 
placed its olive branch in many a divided turbulent family. Happi- 
ness and comfort have arisen on the ashes of want and wo. Health 
and virtue and contentment have blessed many a hearth stone and 
hamlet, and carried to the hearts of the wretched and desperate 
the hopes of religion and immortality. Such, too, will be the result 
of the abolitionists' toils. This nation is politically but not morally 



40 

united. The constitution binds it together, but there is little union 
of feeling and interest. The South are constantly arrayed against 
the North ; The slave-holding States against the non-slave-holding 
States. The dividing line is drawn between the freeman and the 
slave ; between the independent laborer on his own farm and the 
wretched serf toiling for the benefit of another. Most of the bicker- 
ings and contentions and unkind feelings ; most of the sectional jeal- 
ousies and divisions which have ever distracted the union, have been 
generated by slavery. The competition between free and slave la- 
bor has done more to agitate and embroil the nation than all other 
causes together. The halls of Congress have shown this. The tariff 
and nullification have shown this. And these dissensions will con- 
tinue so long as the existing cause continues. As certainly as the 
fire pent up in the mountain will eventually burst forth and scath 
the surrounding fields, unless soothed and extinguished, so certain is 
it that slavery will destroy this union unless abolished by those who 
support it. We wish our opponents would reflect on this. Slavery 
and not abolitionism is threatening to dissolve the union. Slavery 
and not abolitionism is disorganizing. The abolitionist is holding 
out the olive branch amid the contentions of freemen and slaves. 
He is throwing oil on the agitated waters. Instead of war, he will 
send peace, instead of a sword, there shall be the songs and prayer of 
a united family, gathered around the altar of a merciful and just God. 
Quietude such as the United States have never seen, will follow the 
triumph of his principles — the principles of justice and good will. 

That there are obstacles in the way of immediate emancipation 
we do not deny, but that they may each and all be surmounted by a 
strict and persevering attachment to justice we fully believe. Other 
objections than those mentioned above are urged against us, but we 
have not room here to notice them in detail. They have already been 
examined at length by several distinguished writers,* to whose works 
we refer the candid inquirer. Great as these obstacles seem to be, 
and specious as these objections really are, we conceive they are 
founded upon false notions and will yield eventually before the en- 
lightening influences of truth. But with a full view of the realities of 
slavery, its open abominations and iniquities, we know of no objec- 
tions sufficient to deter us from advocating its instant abolition. What- 
ever difficulties attend its abandonment, be assured horrors thrice told 
cling to its existence. We must act. Duty is plain, and the conse* 
quences attending its performance are not to be feared. Sacrifices 
and trials there will be— they are inevitable but they must be met— 
met with firmness, with christian meekness and fidelity. The aboli- 
tionist has encountered opposition — has been violently assa,iled in 
motives and designs — and held up before the world with ridicule, 
wrath, and affected, if not real contempt. Mobs have beset him in 
various places, and on various occasions. The church, dedicated to 
the ■ Almighty, has been no sanctuary, but has been violated by his 
enemies. His property has been plundered and burnt; his char- 

*We refer particularly to Mrs. Child's Appeal, Phelps' Lectures, and 
Jay's Inquiry. 



41 

acter misrepresented and abused. But all this ought not to discour- 
age him. It was to have been expected; for the advocate of truth 
and justice, in all ages, has been assailed with reproach and persecu- 
tion, when he has exposed the wickedness and corruption of the times, 
and attempted their removal. 

But though the abolitionist has met with opposition, he has met, 
also, with encouragement. His labors have been blessed with much 
success. The rewards of his toils are already returning to him. His 
doctrines are becoming daily and hourly more the doctrines of the 
multitude. The signs of the times are not dubious ; he who can dis- 
cern the face of the heavens can read them. The incitements to con- 
tinued exertion are not few. The justice of our cause is enough to 
inspire all of us with unfaltering zeal and energy in carrying it for- 
ward, even though we should be defeated on all sides. But when we 
take into consideration the unparalleled success of past labors, and 
the auspices of the present moment, we cannot hesitate to thank God 
and take courage. Four years ago, hardly a voice was heard in be- 
half of the oppressed negro. A complete apathy had seized the pub- 
lic feeling. The Colonization Society was drugging christian and in- 
fidel with its narcotic potions, and taking away unrebuked, the last 
hopes of the poor slave. Now^ what is the state of opinion and action? 
That same deceptive society, which surely " leads to the degradation 
and oppression of the poor colored man, resisting every effort to free 
the slave, and misleading the conscience of the slave holder," is be- 
coming the scorn of its former supporters, and rapidly giving place to 
others formed on the living principle of* immediate emancipation — 
immediate turning from sin. A National Anti-Slavery Society has 
been formed ; six State Societies ; eight or ten County Societies; and 
about 200 Town Societies. Newspapers and the periodicals are dis- 
cussing the subject with earnestness and decision. Ministers and 
lawyers and physicians — men of eminence in the religious and lit- 
erary world — men of strong minds and warm hearts, are actively 
engaged in bringing about a thorough reform. 

In Europe, amid the dynasties of the old world, the cause of liberty 
and human rights is progressing with sure steps. Negro emancipa- 
tion is exciting great attention in various monarchical courts. Eng- 
land has performed a deed which deserves to be recorded on her proud- 
est annals. On the First Day of August, 1834, she transformed 
800,000 human beings from chattels to men. On that day, the jubilee 
of freedom was heard for the first time in her West India Colonies. 
To those islands, the abolitionist points with exultation, and with 
sorrow. With exultation that his principles have been acted upon, 
and their practicability put to a successful test. With sorrow that 
justice has been made to bow before mistaken ideas of expediency. 
The proceedings in the West Indies have demonstrated fully not only 
that immediate emancipation is safe, but that it is the only remedy 
for slavery which is safe. In Bermuda and Antigua, where emanci- 
pation was instant and unconditional, all is quietness and content. — 
The employer and the free laborer have none of those contentions 
which disquiet the islands where slavery in a milder form under 
the apprenticeship system still exists. There the fields are cuhiva- 
4* 



42 

ted, the crops are gathered in and taken care of, without any compul- 
sion 01 loss. And whenever our opponents talk of the dangers of 
emancipation, Ave will refer them, with gratitude to God, to Bermu- 
da and Antigua. 

France is moving in the good work, and ere many years shall have 
passed away, we confidently look for the abolition of slavery, under 
all its forms, throughout her dominions. An Abolition Society has 
been formed at Paris, of which the Dukede Broglie, one of the min- 
isters of the government, is president. The question is soon to be 
brought before the Chamber of Deputies. It remains to be seen 
whether the monarchies of Europe, or the republics of America shall 
first carry out the broad principles of natural equality and inalienable 
rights. 

In our own country, the prospect is truly encouraging. The course 
of events is evidently tending to speedy and entire emancipation. At 
the North, the voice of the people is growing louder and more deci- 
ded against the holding of property in man— against slavery in the ab- 
stract and the concrete. In the South and South-West,the movements 
are of a nature not to be mistaken. They are the response of move- 
ments at the North. They evince that our efforts have not been in 
vain, but that they tend to awaken feelingand action where the rem- 
edy is to be directly applied. It is idle to say we cannot influence 
the slaveholder. We c'o influence him. Facts prove it. The move- 
ments in Kentucky and Missouri prove it. An Anti-Slavery Society 
has been formed in the heart of a slave State. An animated public 
discussion is going on, whero a few years since all was silent as the 
grave. In Kentucky, the accession of James G. Birney, Esq. to the 
ranks of imm.ediate emancipation, and his untiring labors, are doing 
much to forward the cause in that State. To show the condition oi" 
public feeling there, we would remark that a resolution was introdu- 
ced into the Senate a few months since, calling a convention for the 
purpose of so far amending the Constitution as to provide for the 
emancipation of slaves, and was lost by a voieohiineteento nineteen. 
in Missouri, also, a similar proposition has been laid before the legisla- 
ture of that State. The result is not yet known. Several of the papers 
there, as well as in Tennessee, speak out boldly and decidedly on the 
subject, and are much more severe again.'^^t the system of slavery and 
open to discussion than the press at the North. 

The introduction of the subject of slavery in the District of Colum- 
bia before Congress during the last session is an omen of good to the 
oppressed. Although the plea for emancipation was denied, and the 
Gtigma of reproach still permitted to cling to the statute book, yet 
we have much reason for hearty congratulation. Our principles have 
found an advocate in Mr. Dickson of New York, who will not fail to 
urge them ably, and on every occasion. The mere discussion of the 
subject there Vvdll eifect much. It will lead people to careful thought, 
to inquiry,to personal investigation. Neither will the final rejection 
of the petitions discourage further effort. Other petitions will be cir- 
culated among the people during the summer, and no exertions will 
be spared till justice is meted out by the National Legislature to all 
over whom it exercises power. 



43 

We speak lohat loe do know, when we say we have much reason to 
persevere in the cause which we have undertaken. It is emphati- 
cally the cause of humanity and of God, and a rich reward will as- 
suredly attend the triumph of our efforts. Every obstacle will be re- 
moved from our path if we persevere — every objection proved to be 
nothing but the suggestions of interest and carping selfishness. In 
view of these things therefore — in view of the enormities and blood- 
guiltiness of American Slavery ; in view of the horrible sufferings of 
its victims and its terrible influence on the master; in view of our 
duties as citizens of this great Republic, as patriots,as philanthropists, 
and above all as Christians, do we appeal to the people of New- 
Hampshire; to every man, woman and child within its borders to 
come up to the rescue of their brethren and sisters in bonds. We ap- 
peal to them in the name of the country which they love. We appeal 
to them as to those who have drank deeply from the fountains of re- 
ligion and holy benevolence. With the Bible in our hands and the 
words of inspiration on our lips, we would plead with them to remem- 
ber those in bonds as bound with them. We appeal to them as they 
honor the commands of God, as they would follow in the footsteps of 
him who went about doing good; as they feel for the affliction of 
their fellow men ; we appeal to them as they value the ordinances of 
the gospel; as they love the institutions of piety, and the courts of 
pure and undefiled worship ; as they treasure in their bosoms the 
christian's unfailing hope in time and eternity, that they rise up and 
labor for the redemption of the plundered negro. We plead with 
them before God, angels and men. We warn them of the vast 
responsibilities which are upon them. If they hear — well; but if 
they will forbear, then the afflicted have but one other hope, — the 
righteous and direct intervention of God's own right arm, which will 
most assuredly be made bare in their defence. 

To the friends of the cause in Avhich we are engaged, we would say, 
PERSEVERE. Be CONSTANT. Let uot obstaclcs, threats or persecu- 
tion diminish your zeal. Your labors have been blessed with the fa- 
vor of the Most High. Be steadfast in the principles you have cho- 
-sen, the principles which shall bless the negro, this country, and the 
world. Persevere,— NIL DESPERANDUM DUCE DEO. 



44 

CONSTITUTION 

OF THE 

NEW-HAMPSHIRE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 

PREAMBLE. 
The most high God hath made of one blood all the families of man to dwell 
on the face of all the earth, and hath endowed all alike with the same inal- 
ienable rights, of which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ; yet 
there are now in this land, more than two millions of human beings, pos- 
sessed of the same deathless spirits, and heirs to the same immortal hopes 
and destinies with ourselves, who are nevertheless deprived of these their 
sacred rights, and kept in the most cruel and abject bondage ; a bondage 
under which human beings are bred and fattened for the market, and then 
bought, sold, mortgaged, leased, bartered, fettered, tasked, scourged, beaten, 
killed, hunted even like the veriest brutes, — nay, made often the unwilling 
victims of ungodly lust ; while, at the same time, their minds are, by law 
and custom, generally shut out from all access to letters, and in various 
other ways all their upward tendencies are repressed and crushed, so as to 
make their "moral and religious condition such that they may justly be 
considered the heathen of this country ;" and since we regard such oppres- 
sion as one of the greatest wrongs that man can commit against his fellow; 
and existing as it does, and tolerated as it is, under this free and Christian 
government, sapping its foundation, bringing its institutions into contempt 
among other nations, thus retarding the march of freedom and religion and 
strengthening the hands of despotism and irreligion throughout the world ; 
and since we deem it a duty to ourselves, to our government, to the world, 
to the oppressed, and to God, to do all we can to end this oppression, and to 
secure an immediate and entire emancipation of the oppressed ; and believe 
we can act most efficiently in the case, in the way of combined and organ- 
ized action : — Therefore, we, the undersigned, do form ourselves into a so- 
ciety for the purpose, and adopt the following 

CONSTITUTION. 

Art. I. This Society shall be called the New-Hampshire Anti-Slavery 
Society, and shall be auxiliary to the American Anti-Slavery Society. 

Art. II. The fundamental principle of this Society is, that slave-holding 
is a heinous sin against God, and ought therefore to be immediately and 
forever abandoned. 

Art. III. The objects of this Society are to secure the immediate and 
entire emancipation of the enslaved from the oppression of slavery, of the 
free blacks from the oppression of public sentiment, and the elevation of 
both to the enjoyment of equal intellectual, civil and religious rights and 
privileges. And this Society will endeavor to effect these objects by the 
use of such Christian means as are suited to correct prevailing and wicked 
prejudices, and to change the public sentiment of the nation in regard to 
the rights of the enslaved ; but will never encourage a resort to violence in 
Tindication of their rights. 

Art. IV. Any person assenting to the above principles may become a 
member of the Society by signing this constitution. Local Societies formed 
on similar principles may become auxiliary by paying any sum annually 
into the Treasury. 



45 

Art. V. The Officers of this Society shall be a President, five or more 
Vice Presidents, a Corresponding and Recording Secretary, Treasurer and 
Executive Committee. The Executive Committee shall consist of seven, 
who with the President, Vice Presidents, Secretaries and Treasurer shall 
constitute a Board of Managers to represent the Society during its recess. 
It shall be the duty of the Board of Managers to take all measures necessa- 
ry to carry into effect the general objects of the Society, live constituting a 
quorum to transact business. ' 

Art. VI. The annual meeting of the Society shall be held in Concord, 
at such time and place as the Managers shall appoint, during Election week. 

Art. VII. This Constitution may be altered or amended at any annual 
meeting of the Society, such alteration or amendment having been propos- 
ed at a previous meeting. 



DECLARATION 



NATIONAL ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION, 

Assembled in Philadelphia^ December 4, 1833. 

The Convention, assembled in the city of Philadelplia to organize a Na- 
tional Anti-Slavery Society, promptly seize the opportunity to promulgate 
the following DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS, as cherished by them 
in relation to the enslavement of one-sixth portion of the American people. 

More than fifty-seven years have elapsed since a band of patriots conve- 
ned in this place, to devise measures for the .deliverance of this country 
from a foreign yoke. The corner-stone upon which they founded the Tem- 
ple OF Freedom was broadly this— 'that all men are created eqaal ; that 
they are endowed by theirCreator with certain unalienable rights; that among 
these are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness.' At the sound 
of their trumpet-call, three millions of people rose up as from the sleep of 
death, and rushed to the strife of blood ; deeming it more glorious to die 
instantly as freemen, than desirable to live one hour as slaves. They were 
few in number ; poor in resources ; but the honest conviction that Truth, 
Justice, and Right were on their side, made them invincible. 

We have met together for the achievement of an enterprise, without 
which, that of our fathers is incomplete ; and which, for its magnitude, so- 
lemnity, and probable results upon the destiny of the world, as far tran- 
scends theirs, as moral truth does physical force. 

In purity of motive, in earnestness of «eal, in decision of purpose, in in- 
trepidity of action, in steadfastness of faith, in sincerity of spirit, we would 
not be inferior to them. 

Their principles led them to wage war against their oppressors, and to 
spill human blood like water, in order to be free. Ours forbid the doing of 
evil that good may come, and lead us to reject, and to entreat the oppressed 
to reject, the use of all carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage ; re- 
lying solely upon those which are spiritual, and mighty through God to the 
pulling down of strong holds. 

Their measures were physical resistance — the marshalling in arms — the 
hostile array — the mortal encounter. Ours shall be such only as the oppo- 
sition of moral purity to moral corruption — the destruction of error by the 
potency of truth — the overthrow of prejudice by the power of love — and the 
abolition of slavery by the spirit of repentance. 

Their grievances, great as they were, were trifling in comparison with 



46 

the wrongs and sufferings of those for whom we plead. Oar fathers were 
never slaves — never bought and sold like cattle — never shut out from the 
light of knowledge and religion — never subjected to the lash of brutal task- 
masters. 

But those for whose emancipation we are striving — constituting at the 
present time at least one-sixth part of our countrymen,— are recognized by 
the law, and treated by their fellow-beings, as marketable commodities — as 
goods and chattels — as brute beasts; are plundered daily of the fruits of 
their toil without redress ; really enjoying )\o constitutional nor legal pro- 
tection from licentious and murderous outrages upon their persons ; are 
ruthlessly torn asunder — the tender babe from the arms of its frantic moth- 
er — the heart-broken wife from her weeping husband — at the caprice or 
pleasure of irresponsible tyrants. For the crime of having a dark com- 
plexion, they suffer the pangs of hunger, the infliction of stripes, and the 
ignominy of brutal servitude. They are kept in heathenish darkness by 
laws expressly enacted to make their instruction a criminal offence. 

These are the prominent circumstances in the condition of more than two 
millions of our people, the proof of which may be found in thousands of in- 
disputable facts, and in the laws of the slave-holding States. 

Hence we maintain — That in view of the civil and religious privileges of 
this nation, the guilt of its oppression is unequalled by any other on the face 
uf the earth; and, therefore, 

That ii is bound to repent instantly, to undo the heavy burden, to break 
every yoke, and to let the oppressed go free. 

We further maintain — That no man has a right to enslave or imbrute his 
brother — to hold or acknowledge him, for one moment, as a piece of mer- 
chandize — to keep back his hire by fraud — or to brutalize his mind by de- 
nying him the means of intellectual, social, and moral improvement. 

The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it, is to usurp the 
prerogative of Jehovah. Every man has a right to his own body — to the 
products of his own labor — to the protection of law — and to the common ad- 
vantages of society. It is piracy to buy or steal a native African, and sub- 
ject him to servitude- Surely the sin is as great to enslave an American 
as an African. 

Therefore we believe and affirm — That there is no difference, in principU, 
between the Africc#i slave trade and American slavery ; 

That every American citizen, who retains a human being in involuntary 
bondage as his property, is, [according to Scripture*'] a man-stealer ; 

That the slaves ought instantly to be set free, and brought under the 
protection of law ; 

That if they had lived from the time of Pharaoh down to the present pe- 
riod, and had been entailed through successive generations, their right to 
be free could never have been alienated, but their claims would have con- 
siantly risen in solemnity ; 

That all those laws which are now in force, admitting the right of slave- 
ry, are therefore before God utterly null and void ; being an audacious 
usurpation of the Divine prerogative, a daring infringement on the law of 
Nature, a base overthrow of the very foundations of the social compact, 
a complete extinction of all the relations, endearments, and obligations 
of mankind, and a presumptuous transgression of all the holy command- 
ments ; and that therefore they ought to be instantly abrogated. 

We further believe and affirm—That all persons of color who possess 
the qualifications which are demanded of others, ought to be admitted forth- 

*Exod. xxi. 16: Deut. xxiv. 7. 



47 

with to the enjoyment of the same privileges, and the exercise of the same 
prerogatives, as others ; and that the paths of preferment, of wealth, and of 
intelligence, should be opened as widely to them as to persons of a white 
complexion. 

We maintain that no compensation should be given to the planters eman- 
cipating their slaves ; 

Because it would be a surrender of the great fundamental principle, that 
man cannot hold property in man ; 

Because Slavery is a crime, and therefore it is not an article to 

BE SOLD; 

Because the holders of slaves are noj; the just proprietors of what they 
claim; — freeing the slaves is not depriving them of property, but restor- 
ing it to its right owners ; — it is not wronging the master, but righting the 
slave — restoring him to himself: 

Because immediate and general emancipation would only destroy 
nominal, not real property ; it would not amputate a limb or break a bone 
of the slaves, but by infusing motives into their breasts, would make 
them doubly valuable to the masters as free laborers ; and 

Because if compensation is to be given at all, it should be given to the 
outraged and guiltless slaves, and not to those who have plundered and 
abused them. 

We regard as delusive, cruel and dangerous, any scheme of expatriation 
which pretends to aid, either directly or indirectly, in the emancipation 
of the slaves, or to be a substitute for the immediate and total abolition 
of slavery. 

We fully and unanimously recognize the sovereignty of each State, to 
legislate exclusively on the subject of slavery which is tolerated within its 
limits. We concede that Congress, under the present national compact, has 
no right to interfere with anj^of the slave States in relation to this mo- 
mentous subject. 

But we maintain that Congress has a right, and is solemnly bound to 
suppress the domestic slave-trade between the several States, and to abolish 
slavery in those portions of our territory which the Constitution has 
placed under its exclusive jurisdiction. 

We also maintain that there are, at the present time, the highest obli- 
gations resting upon the people of the free States, to remove slavery by 
moral and political action, as prescribed in the Constitution of the United 
States. They are now living under a pledge of their tremendous physical 
force to fasten the galling fetters of tyranny upon the limbs of millions in 
the southern States ; they are liable to be called at any moment to suppress 
a general insurrection of the slaves ; they authorize the slave owner to 
vote for three-fifths of his slaves as property, and thus enable him to per- 
petuate his oppression ; they support a standing army at the South for its 
protection ; and they seize the slave who has escaped into their territories, 
and send him back to be tortured by an enraged master or a brutal driver. 

This relation to slavery is criminal and full of danger : it must be 

BROKEN UP. 

These are our views and principles — these, our designs and measures. 
With entire confidence in the overruling justice of God, we plant ourselves 
upon the Declaration of our Independence, and the truths of Divine Rev- 
lation, as upon the everlasting rock. 

We shall organize Anti-Slavery Societies, if possible, in every city, town 
and village in our land. 

AVe shall send forth Agents to lift up the voice of remonstrance, of 
warning, of entreaty and rebuke. 



48 

We shall circulate, unsparingly and extensively, anti-slavery traclj^ 
and periodicals. 

We shall enlist the pulpit and the press in the cause of the suffering 
and the dumb. 

We shall aim at a purification of the churches from all participation in 
the guilt of slavery. 

We shall encourage the labor of freemen rather than that of the slaves, 
by giving a preference to their productions ; and 

We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring the whole nation to 
speedy repentance. 

Our trust for victory is solely in GOD. We may be personally defeated, 
but our principles never. Truth, Justice, 'Reason, Humanity, must and 
will gloriously triumph. Already a host is coming up to the help of the 
Lord against the mighty, and the prospect before us is full of encourage- 
ment. 

Submitting this DECLARATION to the candid examination of the 
people of this country, and of the friends of liberty throughout the world, 
we hereby affix our signatures to it ; pledging ourselves that, under the 
guidance and by the help of Almighty God, we will do all that in us lies, 
consistently with this Declaration of our principles, to overthrow the most 
execrable system of slavery that has ever been witnessed upon earth ; to 
deliver our land from its deadliest curse ; to wipe out the foulest stain 
which rests, upon our national escutcheon; and to secure to the colored 
population of the United States all the rights and privileges which belong 
to them as men and as Americans — come what may to our persons, our 
interests, or our reputations — whether we live to witness the triumph of 
Liberty, Justice and Humanity, or perish untimely as martyrs in this great, 
benevolent and holy cause. 

Signed in the Adelphi Hall, in the City of , Philadelphia, on the ^th day of 
December, A. D. 1833. 



STATE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETIES, 

Auxiliary to the American Anti-Slavery Society. 

Name. When organized. Presidents. Corres. Secretaries. Residence o) 

Secretaries. 
Mass. Jan. 1832. Joseph South wick. Samuel E. Sewall, Boston. 

Vermont. 1 May, 1834. John Lie. Orson S. Murray, Orwell. 

Maine. 16 Oct. 1834. Samuel M. Pond. Geo. E. Adams, Brunswick. 
N. H. 11 Nov. 3834. David Root. John Farmer, Concord. 

Ken. 19 Mar. 1835. Jas.M. Buchanan. Luke Munsell, Danville. 
Ohio. 27 Apr. 1835. Leicester King. Albert A. Guthrie, Putnam. 



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